


Wood of Princes

by baeconandeggs, koizoras (parkchanyeol)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe – Cyberpunk, M/M, Romance, Science Fiction, characters have a truckload of issues, powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 10:46:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19083460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baeconandeggs/pseuds/baeconandeggs, https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkchanyeol/pseuds/koizoras
Summary: Baekhyun lived high up in the crumbling castle of Saturn, isolated on their lonely peninsula, passing day after day with nothing in sight, unrealised and unfulfilled. Until one morning — when the boy walked into his hall, earth on his hands, leaves in his hair, wildfire blazing in his eyes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:** BAE006  
>  **Disclaimer: baeconandeggs/the mods is/are not the author/s of this story. Authors will be credited and tagged after reveals.** The celebrities' names/images are merely borrowed and do not represent who the celebrities are in real life. No offense is intended towards them, their families or friends. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this fictional work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
>   
> 
> **Author's Note:** Thanks to the mods for hosting this & my prompter for the lovely prompt. This wouldn’t have been possible to pull together without help and input from my beta, I. The final fic is still crowded as hell, there’re many things I would’ve adjusted/improved if I had time. Maybe someday (hard maybe). Hope you’ll give this a chance, and a huge thanks to everyone reading! [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1kfmnrHbPqL7pULkjzQprh?si=mr-TLncGQqG5X6ctpiKNEA)

Up in the castle on the cliff, celebrations for Saturnalia were underway.

The lights were visible even from space — a galaxy of bioluminescent gas and dust in the colours of the deep ocean, like a cosmic cloak of stars that rose from the surface of the sea and waltzed into the hallways, spiralling across ceilings like miniature nebulae. It was a phenomenon that graced the castle only once a year, settling around its towers and parapets, forming haloes around the marble statues in its sprawling gardens. From the castle’s many balconies, residual glow could be seen illuming the beach in a wash of peridot, floating on the tide and outlining the pattern of waves crashing onto land.

In the grand ballroom, long banquet tables spilled with food and wine the kitchen team had prepared for the night. Every child of the castle had slaved away from early morning in preparation of the lavish celebrations. Every hallway was swept through, every surface painstakingly polished. Walls were adorned with gold-threaded tapestry, windowsills crammed with greenery, doors hung with decorative wreaths.

To Baekhyun, it was all too familiar; part of yearly routine. Everything was exactly the same as it had always been — the feast, the games they played, the lights continuously dancing overhead. As festivities thundered on in the ballroom, he walked along the empty corridors, hands balancing laden trays, footsteps quiet against the fraying carpet.

The scent of seafood greeted him before he made it through the kitchen doors. Behind the central stovetops, a boy in an apron was stirring the contents of a giant frying pan, glancing periodically at a trickling hourglass on the counter next to him. As Baekhyun approached, he lifted his head to catch his eye, gesturing with his chin. “Hi. Can you grab that?”

The boy at the stove was Kyungsoo, and he was one of Baekhyun’s highest-ranked court advisors. Baekhyun followed his gaze to a collection of unfamiliar copper pots resting on a brick counter, filled with spicy red stew.

“Yeah, no problem.” Baekhyun looked away, consciously keeping the unease out of his voice. He gloved up slowly, transferring the pots onto a serving cart. “Where did you get these pots from?”

“What?” Kyungsoo’s tone made it clear he wasn’t really listening. “They were in the cupboards.”

“They weren’t here last year, if you recall we had to serve in that massive cooking pot you’ve got behind you.” Baekhyun was certain he hadn’t misremembered. Living on the cliffs meant their source of ore was limited, and their metalsmith usually restricted his repertoire to basic ironware.

There was no response, and Baekhyun turned around. Behind a cloud of steam, Kyungsoo was still frying potatoes as though he hadn’t heard, only now his attention was fixated completely, unnaturally, on his task. A chill crept over Baekhyun’s skin, and he knew what was about to happen. It was something he’d experienced only several times prior, but never became any less terrifying — it was as though his own reality had become momentarily detached from the reality that surrounded him.

Slowly, Baekhyun walked towards where Kyungsoo stood, barely visible behind the cloud of steam. Kyungsoo’s eyes still stared blankly down at the pan, his hands stirring uniformly. When Baekhyun arrived and stood directly before him, Kyungsoo sidestepped neatly, walking around him to access the spice rack without any form of acknowledgement — it was as though he had momentarily ceased to exist.

“Do Kyungsoo!” As Baekhyun had predicted, Kyungsoo didn’t turn around or acknowledge him. Panic rising slightly in his throat, his eyes darted to the hourglass. White sand continued to trickle down in a thin, even stream. “Today may be Saturnalia, but tomorrow you’re done for.”

Baekhyun wondered what would happen if he refused to bring the stew as Kyungsoo had requested, and instead let them sit on the counter. Would Kyungsoo continue ignoring him, summon someone else to serve? If he confronted someone else about the mysterious pots, would they ignore him as well? Would they disown him from their reality?

He was horribly curious, but fear won out. He wasn’t prepared to push the boundaries just yet.

The first thing was to get away. Hurriedly, Baekhyun loaded the pots onto the cart and wheeled it out of the kitchen, leaving Kyungsoo still stirring behind him.

The doors were wide open, allowing the band to be heard from halfway across the castle. All the boys and girls were gathered on the floor, dressed in their finest — whatever hand-stitched robes they had, that they’d managed to find in the castle stores, whatever the castle sartors had put together with the material they had. Everyone — except Kyungsoo and Baekhyun, though they would be expected to join once their duties were relieved — was celebrating, sitting around square tables playing dice and jacks and board games, pouring wine from stone jars. As per tradition, they would continue to drink and dance and gamble till the morning came.

Because it was Saturnalia, the one night that even the servant boys were given free rein. It was the one night that servants became the masters, and the courtiers waited hand and foot on them.

Baekhyun pulled the cart to a stop next to one of the banquet tables and began clearing empty platters, making room for the stew. A large hand abruptly clamped down on his shoulder, and Baekhyun turned to glance around.

“Baekhyun, just in time.” Kris, one of the nightguards, stood behind him. A laurel wreath was jammed crookedly on his hair. “We’re out of flatbread — go tell Kyungsoo to rustle up some more. Grab some more mezze while you’re at it.”

His tone was overly familiar — ordinarily, Kris would never dare to speak to Baekhyun in such a casual manner, let alone order him around. But it was Saturnalia, and Kris had been appointed the Lord of Misrule — master of celebrations. It was his job to throw out ridiculous commands for the boys to follow, and as far as this one went, it was perfectly reasonable. Baekhyun was just relieved to be acknowledged. 

He nodded, but the fair-haired boy next to Kris rolled his eyes. “Tell someone else to get food, that’s possibly the dullest order you could’ve given him.” The speaker was Lu Han. He was chief of the castle’s hunting pack, so he’d probably spent the entire day scrubbing floors. “Take advantage of the occasion, we need to see something good from the prince.”

Kris nodded thoughtfully. “Right, it is Saturnalia. Alright then, I’ve got a task for Baekhyun.” He raised his voice, and instantly everyone in the vicinity turned to watch in anticipation. “Sing us a song.”

There was some groaning at the tameness of the command, but it still annoyed Baekhyun against rational judgment. He hid his displeasure, forcing out an easy laugh. “Certainly. Any requests?”

Several people threw out suggestions, and when Kris had decided on one — a new rondo by court composer Zhang Yixing — Baekhyun started the song, clapping in rhythm to encourage the kids to join in. Soon everyone was singing along, the band jamming, clapping and dancing and nobody even noticed when Baekhyun’s voice petered out. The floor turned into a flurry of sparkling fabric, sweaty faces and roar of several hundred voices shouting at once.

As the rondo drew to a dizzying close, Baekhyun watched the band signal to each other and the song segued neatly into the next, the song of Saturnalia. The celebrations were reaching their peak. Everyone was singing without inhibition, every face wearing the same expression of release and spiritual bliss. Every soul felt sure that their castle could be seen from the sky, with how bright and beautiful it all was. Because the castle was the home of their kingdom, and their kingdom was all they knew.

Not wanting to stand out, Baekhyun sang along, his voice drowned out in a sea of harmonies. The voices swelled louder and louder, soaring above the instrumentals.

When the song finally ended, singing relapsed into chatter, as though nothing had happened. Baekhyun thought he could see tears still glistening on cheeks, but they were swiftly wiped away.

“Drink?” It was Kris, waving a bottle under his nose. The scent was muscadine and intoxicating.

Baekhyun shook his head. “It’s alright, I’ll have some later when I’m off duty.”

“Oh come on. Sing the song of Saturn, drink from the urn of Bacchus.” Next to him, Lu Han was eating berries, and Kris grabbed a few off his plate. Red juice spilled out as he chewed, staining his teeth and sliding over his lips. “The Lord of Misrule insists.”

With no choice, Baekhyun took the bottle and drank, vaguely noticing Kris and Lu Han cheering him on in the background, still munching on berries. Holly berries, Baekhyun realised through the drink-induced haze in his head. The thought made his stomach turn, though he wasn’t sure why. There was something horribly wrong about it, something he couldn’t place...

Suppressing a wave of nausea, Baekhyun set the bottle down on a table and wheeled the cart back out, abandoning it by the doors and walking unsteadily up the stairs. Some of the others were loitering in the corridor outside, sprawled over the stairs with empty bottles standing next to them. If they were sober enough to realise he wasn’t heading for the kitchens, nobody dared to comment, which Baekhyun was thankful for. He needed to be alone.

 

 

 

The castle of Saturn sat high within a dark rocky cliff, a great slab of crumbling grey stone sprouting from a massive recess, as though some godly force had punched right through the limestone. Beneath it, a sheer drop led to dense mountainous forest, and miles further on, white sand and sea. It was absolutely isolated, accessible only from an arched iron bridge that led seamlessly out from the drawbridge, traversing the deepest chasm and connecting the castle to the next peak on the promontory.

At night, Baekhyun lay half-submerged in the baths at the top of the castle, arms resting against cold marble. The warm water glowed bright aquamarine, surrounded by smooth stone columns, light bouncing off shards of stained glass and broken bottles of spirits the kids had emptied in preparation for the grand convivium. Wind rushed through the balcony, filling his ears, tangling his hair, raising bumps on his skin.

The entire castle was still in the midst of their debauchery, and he knew he would not be disturbed. From behind the columns he could see the sea, rough and raging, the crests of waves demarcated by concentric lines of bioluminescence, like a natural topographic map. Up above he could see one of the gas giants, blocking out the eastern sky. The sights calmed him somewhat, loosening the vise he felt suffocating his lungs and steadying his racing heart.

The celebrations hadn’t always been so bad. He knew he’d enjoyed them once upon a time, but that had faded with the passing years. He’d been serving his servants for much of the day as per tradition, and he was willing to work, but taking orders always rankled. No matter how much he enjoyed seeing his people happy, he wasn’t used to deferring, even for just one day a year. Lately, it was more than that — he felt removed from his own being, detached from the others, uneasy, as though something was missing. The days blurred together: endless cycles of violence, freedom and unbridled aggression and struggles for power.

He was tired of it all. It could’ve been ennui, or loneliness, or something that ran deeper. He wished he knew.

Maybe he was losing his grip on reality. He knew his mind was clouded somehow, as though he could not focus on more than one thought at a time. He’d been having those out-of-body experiences, with people acting like he hadn’t spoke, as though he’d been frozen in time.

Worst of all, there was no one he could turn to. No one he felt any connection to. No matter how hard he tried, it felt like everyone was keeping him at arm’s length, leaving him trapped in his own echochamber. The few times he’d mentioned venturing beyond the woods, he’d been shut down flat. Nobody else appeared to have given the topic any thought — they said there was nothing out there. There couldn’t be. The woods were the end of the world.

And so the days dragged on, each one the same as the next. There was no reason for anything he did. No sense of self or identity, no awareness. No future in sight, not even the concept of a future.

 _Who am I? Why am I here? What lies out there?_ Thoughts began to creep into his mind, smoky and fragile as a moonbeam.

He couldn’t shake the feeling of being a prisoner.

 

 

 

The morning after, Baekhyun awoke to a message that the Children of the Forest, their sworn enemies, had requested a meeting under a flag of truce.

His first instinct was to suspect subterfuge. His mind was still groggy from the late-night revelry of Saturnalia, and most of the other castle dwellers would no doubt be in a similar state. The Forest tribe could easily take advantage of their exhaustion and lowered defences to step into the heart of their stronghold, lure them into a trap.

However, when he rose to gaze out of the south-facing window, he saw a party of no more than five assembled on the drawbridge. One of the girls was holding a wooden flagpole, its white flag billowing in the wind. Scanning the entire length of the bridge, Baekhyun saw no sign of a single reinforcement, nothing that might indicate a trap of some kind. It was hardly likely that five people could inflict any significant damage on them in their own throne room.

“Alright,” he decided, straightening up. “We’ll hear them out. But search them thoroughly.”

“I’ll notify the courtiers.” The messenger bowed and retreated from the room. Baekhyun headed over to the cabinet, pulled on a set of robes and hovered briefly over the weapons tray. He strapped a knife to his belt and walked out, heading down to the hall. 

By the time he was seated on the throne, the rest of court was assembled, the negotiating party ready to enter. The herald, standing ready by the door, announced their arrival, and then the party were walking slowly along the length of the carpet, curious eyes roving the length of the stone walls, up to the ceiling and back to the throne at the end of the room where Baekhyun sat.

A boy, presumably the leader, walked at their front. Baekhyun’s first impression was that he seemed to have crawled straight out of the earth. He was tall, probably half a head taller than Baekhyun, and powerfully built, with broad shoulders and strong arms. His large eyes were dark and angry, his stance defensive, but there was soft youthfulness in his face — he couldn’t have been older than nineteen or twenty, around the same age as Baekhyun himself.

Baekhyun studied the boy. There was something familiar about him — Baekhyun felt sure that he had glimpsed him somewhere before, but couldn’t recall exactly when. The boy stared right back at him, making his own assessment, and it suddenly struck Baekhyun that he was intimidatingly handsome. Heat rose to his face, and he had to look away.

The room was silent, waiting for Baekhyun to speak. “Convey your terms,” he said.

One of the girls stepped forwards. She was the flag-bearer from earlier, and looked just as beaten-up as the boy did, sporting fresh cuts on her face and arms. “We want to propose a truce. Indefinitely.” 

“What are the proposed limits?”

“We stay out of your territory; you stay off our land.”

“So, effectively, an end to the war we’ve been fighting for as long as we know.”

The girl kept her chin defiantly raised. “Yes,” she said. “If you want to call it that. Stalemate.”

Baekhyun raised an eyebrow, letting skepticism colour his features. “And why should we agree to these terms? It’s pretty apparent that you know you’re on the verge of being overpowered.”

“That’s not the reason we came.” One of the boys took over. “There have been unexplainable things happening in the forest, for the past few weeks.” He looked to the boy in front, as though asking for permission to continue, and got it in the form of a slight nod. “We encountered a beast after dark, like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Our hunting party was returning to our base and it leapt out of the darkness— those things are silent, easily six feet in length, like giant wolves. Some of our party were wounded. We’ve since encountered more. We just spent the entire night taking one down.”

 _Where do they come from_ , Baekhyun wondered, but the thought vanished as quickly as it came.

Baekhyun’s eyes narrowed. “And all of these sightings have been after dark?” His gaze flickered back to the boy in front.

The boy nodded.

“The way I see this, you’ve conceded defeat. You’re being tired out by these monsters, and haven’t got the strength to reform your ranks in the day. Nice try. This is a surrender.”

“We are not surrendering. We will continue to fight you if you refuse, but eventually we will have to work together to fight them off.”

“And why should we do that?”

“We’ve been mapping their pattern of movement,” the girl said. “Their appearances have been progressively grown closer to the castle. They will be on your land soon. And in the event that we get wiped out while at war with you, you will still have to venture into the forest to get your food. Only we won’t be there as a human barricade. You know you’re not safe from them either.”

There was a long pause, and Baekhyun ran the words through his mind. One of his advisors stepped forwards, but Baekhyun held a hand up. He wanted to make this decision alone. Not the least because he didn’t trust Kyungsoo anymore.

“Okay,” Baekhyun said, the words flowing of their own accord. As he spoke, his insides twisted in nervous anticipation. Something imperceptible was shifting. "We will agree to the truce. But we will not help you with your fight against these forest-dwelling creatures. You’ll have to deal with that yourself.”

“They _will_ come for you.”

“As far as you can tell, they are nocturnal, and we have the castle to protect us.”

“There’s no guarantee they can’t get through the fortifications, or overpower your guard.”

“And we’ll deal with them when that happens.” Baekhyun looked away. “You are dismissed.”

His manner was nonchalant, but inside, he could not contain a thrill of excitement.

They had been at war for as long as he could remember. War was constant to them, stagnation and stasis. Maybe now, finally, something could change.

 

 

 

◊ ◈ ◊

 

 

The castle children kept to their word. Since the enforcement of the truce a week prior, Chanyeol had not seen anyone from their enemy tribe out in the Forest. There had been zero altercations.

It was relieving, but strange. He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t needed to wake up in response to a distress call, roll out of bed fully armed to run to someone’s aid.

To make use of their newfound time, the Forest children had charted a new surveillance plan for the hunting pack. Chanyeol was responsible for reconnaissance in the daytime, when he’d head up to the iron bridge, their best vantage point over the Valley, to check for monster activity — purely precautionary, as so far it seemed the monsters were nocturnal.

The bridge towered miles above the forest, its giant flattened bars running straight down into the earth. To make the climb, Chanyeol had to hike up the mountain several miles east of where the castle stood, and find the clearing where the bridge ended. He didn’t really mind the trek. Walking through the forest in the mornings was pure sensory indulgence. The fresh greenness of the damp air, the mist swirling before his eyes, the spring of clean soil beneath his feet — all of it was beautiful in a way he rarely got the chance to appreciate.

As he approached, Chanyeol realised there was a lone figure standing on the bridge, dressed in a beige shirt and black drawstring pants, customary attire of the castle children. Chanyeol’s hand shot to his belt, and his first instinct was to fight. Then he remembered their truce, and forced himself to relax.

The person was a boy, with a head of dark hair and pale skin. It was him — the Prince of the Castle. The prince watched him with unwavering eyes as he walked down the length of the bridge, towards the border where neutral territory merged with the castle drawbridge. His intense attention was slightly unsettling. 

The prince spoke once Chanyeol was within earshot. “What are you doing here?” He didn’t sound hostile, just subtly curious and patronising, much like the previous day.

Chanyeol glanced at the boy’s face, his dark, downturned eyes, sharp face and soft features. He had never fought him in direct combat — he wasn’t sure if the prince fought at all. The day in the throne room was the first time that he’d seen the boy, but there was something compelling about him. It could’ve been the expression on his face, that moment when they’d first met eyes — it looked somehow misplaced on someone so young.

“Being a lapdog for my tribe.” Chanyeol turned towards the forest, surveying the different zones. “And you?”

The prince ignored the question. He was still studying Chanyeol with that disconcerting gaze. “You’re like its prince, aren’t you?”

“We don’t have one. Our tribe doesn’t do rank.”

“It didn’t seem that way, when I saw you a few days back. You’re their leader.”

“I’m not, I just get the guys to hunt together.” Chanyeol wasn’t lying, though he supposed there was some truth in the prince’s words. The other kids did look to him as a de facto leader, for reasons he couldn’t comprehend. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t do more than the other kids — yet they looked to him for direction, falling naturally in line under his instruction.

“What’s your name, then?”

“Park Chanyeol.”

The prince fell silent, and Chanyeol glanced back over his shoulder. He was staring off into the distance, his expression blank as though deep in thought. Was he even listening? Chanyeol crossed to the opposite side, scanning the southern zone.

“I’ve never seen you on this bridge before.” The prince was trailing after him, hovering. “What changed today?”

“We started recon missions.” He couldn’t detect any obvious movement below. The kids were undoubtedly moving across the woods in all directions, but only the monsters, with their pitch-black colour and hulking shadows, would have been visible through the mist from this height. “Though I kind of doubt you leave your castle often enough to judge.”

“I do sometimes. I’m usually alone, so you wouldn’t see me with the hunting pack or the fighters.”

Chanyeol refused to humour him by asking further. “Okay.”

“I was actually out in the forest on Saturnalia, collecting water from the river.” He spoke too quickly.

“Great.” Chanyeol walked away from the castle, paying no heed to the prince still standing and staring after him.

 

 

 

He did not expect to see the prince there again the next day.

“Were you looking for me?” Chanyeol asked. He could think of no other explanation for the prince’s sudden appearance. He’d emerged from the castle gates just as Chanyeol set foot on the bridge, walking to meet him in the middle.

The other boy laughed — sharp, mocking. “Do you always give yourself that much importance?”

An involuntary smirk rose to Chanyeol’s lips, and he looked away. But as he started heading back down the iron bridge towards the forest, the prince followed, walking quickly alongside him.

“What are you doing?”

The prince shrugged. “Following you. Since we’re at a truce, there’s no problem with that, is there?”

“Do you want to hang out with me _that_ badly?”

“Mind your manners, Park Chanyeol. We’re at a truce, but I’m still a prince.”

“ I don’t recognise your authority.”

“Your peers do.”

“Well, they chose to. I consider myself to hold equal rank with you.”

“Oh, so now you admit you’re a prince?”

“What do you want from me?” Chanyeol asked, more nonplussed than anything else.

“I just want to see what you do in the forest.”

“I’m not doing anything special. I’m on recon. And you can’t follow me back to base.”

“I can follow till we hit the territory line. If you try and stop me by force, our truce is over.” His tone was light, but his expression was serious.

“Have you got nothing else to do?” Chanyeol wondered aloud. “Can’t you go bother someone else if you’re that bored, without fighting to distract you?”

“I never fought anyway,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made Chanyeol pause.

He shook his head. “Figures.” Chanyeol lengthened his strides as they stepped off the bridge into the clearing. “Do you what you want, but I’m not going to wait.”

They began descending the mountain, the prince following closely behind him. He was unusually silent, but Chanyeol kept going, pausing at regular intervals to check the traps the forest children had set up for monsters or for prey. This peak wasn’t a high-traffic zone for most, and the traps lay untouched and empty between the trees. The prince watched from a distance as Chanyeol knelt next to the setups, checking if ropes were still tied fast, paced outwards from the traps, making sure trails hadn’t been disrupted. From time to time, he asked questions about what Chanyeol was doing, and since he was being civil, Chanyeol tried to explain.

It was mid-afternoon by the time they reached the foot of the mountain. He’d have to start heading home if he wanted to make it before sunset. Chanyeol stopped to take a drink of water from his bag, and turned to the prince. “I’m heading back now, you should climb back up. Once we get into the forest, it can be hard to find your way.”

The prince shook his head. “I’ll be fine. Where are we headed next?”

Chanyeol sighed. “I really can’t help–”

He froze. There was a rustling coming from the foliage to the left, maybe twenty metres away, but coming from a height much too high to be human.

Every hair on his body stood on end. The Prince opened his mouth to speak, but Chanyeol raised a warning hand and thankfully, he had the sense to stay quiet.

Where was it? He strained to listen further, but the rustling had paused. Maybe it was just a vulture, or a primate of some sort.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he could see a hulking shadow sliding slowly into view, falling across the prince’s face.

His heart dropped like a stone. They were done. “RUN!” He yelled, pushing the prince’s back away from the shadow, breaking into a full-on sprint. The prince stumbled, almost tripping over the exposed roots, but quickly caught on, heavy footfalls landing just outside of the shadow.

The thing had materialised out of thin air, Chanyeol thought. How could he have failed to spot it from the bridge? They’d never seen one in daylight, but there was no mistaking the freakishly impenetrable shadows they cast, way too wide from their actual forms, or the soundlessness of their movement. They were almost impossible to overcome in a hunting pack, let alone on his own, with a prince who looked as though he hadn’t fought a day in his life.

At least they had speed on their side. From past experience, Chanyeol knew he could outrun the beasts — they were big, but weren’t very fast — as long as it was a short enough distance. “To the sea,” he panted.

“What?” The prince’s voice came from worryingly far away.

“They don’t go to the sea.”

“Why not?”

“They just don’t, okay? Keep running!” Chanyeol grabbed the prince’s arm, continuing to tear through the trees. They were pulling ahead, gaining some distance from the shadowy forefront. But the other boy was visibly struggling, and Chanyeol knew he had no choice.

He couldn’t leave the boy behind. He slowed down, waiting those few agonising seconds for him to catch up. “Get on my back.”

“What?” He looked as though he was in pain, but still managed to pull up a look of incredulity. Not waiting for him to take initiative, Chanyeol grabbed him by the waist and hoisted him onto his back, running on towards the ocean with renewed desperation.

There was about a mile left, he thought. He was a safe distance from the monster. He just had to last another mile. But the prince was much heavier than his average bag and crossbow, and by the time he broke the last line of trees, he could barely hold a crouch to let the boy off before collapsing onto the sand.

He lay there, ragged with exhaustion, half-sunk into the sand. Waves lapped at his feet. The tide was high, coming just metres shy of the edge, where several feet of scrub separated the beach from the forest. He didn’t know if the monster was lying in wait somewhere just behind the border, but he didn’t care. He knew they couldn’t reach him here.

Eventually, the haze of exhaustion cleared enough for him to process that the prince was sitting on the sand next to him.

He pulled himself up to sit next to him. “Are you alright?”

The boy nodded, facing the sea. “Yeah. Thank you, by the way. For not leaving me behind.”

The suggestion took him aback. “That’s… not something I could do.”

“Of course not. You’re the Protector Prince of the forest.” There was a teasing note in his voice.

Chanyeol had to restrain himself from rolling his eyes. “What does that make you?”

“Byun Baekhyun.”

“What?”

“I’m Byun Baekhyun. You haven’t asked for my name, so I figured I’d tell you.” The prince turned to look at him then, and Chanyeol didn’t know how to react.

 _Baekhyun_. The name made Chanyeol uneasy, but he wasn’t sure why. It was tugging at something in his mind, something buried so deep it might’ve been from a forgotten dream.

Instead, what came out was: “I didn’t think you guys had names.”

“Yeah? And what would we call each other?”

Chanyeol shrugged. “Prince? Cook, Hunter, Cleaner… whatever else it is you guys do. That’s the kind of operation you run up there, isn’t it?”

“God, you’re so fucking dumb.” For some reason, it didn’t sound offensive when he said it — just truthful. Chanyeol bit back a smile.

Out on the horizon, the sun brushed the surface of the water. Above it, the stars and planets were shifting, faint outlines emerging as the sky darkened. “Anyway, we won’t make it back to the castle or camp before dark.” It was at least a two to three hours’ trek either way. “And we can’t go back in there without daylight. We’ll have to sleep here.”

Baekhyun nodded, seemingly unfazed, even though it had to be the first time he’d ever slept out. “You’re sure the monsters won’t come here?”

“Yes. It’s happened to me before — one night, when I got separated from my team and the monster decided to chase me. I ran past the last line of trees, and suddenly they couldn’t reach me.” It had been probably the most terrifying night of his life.

There was a long pause. “Why – why do you think the monsters can’t come here?” Baekhyun asked finally. His voice was oddly shaky, like he was suddenly out of breath.

The question had definitely crossed his mind before, but as Chanyeol tried to answer, he felt like his brain was shutting down, refusing to focus. “Maybe they’re afraid of water.” There was another idea in his mind, but he couldn’t seem to put words to it. It was as though the thought was trapped in a cage, rendering him mute.

Frustrated, Chanyeol turned to Baekhyun, hoping for someone else to articulate his thoughts for him. Instead of the skepticism he’d expected, shockingly, he saw his own feelings reflected exactly in Baekhyun’s face — intense frustration, and a desperate struggle for focus.

Something inside clicked then. “It’s hard, isn’t it?” Chanyeol blurted. “Forming thoughts. Logical, speculative thoughts.”

Just uttering those words was like breaking through invisible restraints to a moment of clarity; he didn’t realise how much he meant them until they left his mouth. Baekhyun’s lips parted in mute shock as he processed them, identifying their truth. “Yes,” Baekhyun said, voice quiet. His eyes were wide, reflecting Chanyeol’s own shock. They were overwhelmed, Chanyeol thought, because they were all coming to the forefront now – the thoughts he’d constantly tried to unearth, that remained stubbornly six feet under. “It's been a while since I realised. It’s like there’s something wrong with my brain.”

Chanyeol exhaled. “It’s not you–”

“Or something wrong with this place,” Baekhyun continued, cutting him off. The words were almost tripping over each other in his rush to get them out. “Sometimes it’s like time just freezes, and I check out of reality. Physically check out. Everyone else—”

“— just forgets you exist,” Chanyeol finished, dread settling slowly into his gut. Despite the haziness of his mind, those moments just couldn’t be forgotten — he remembered every incident, every moment of that indescribable horror. Of being completely out of place, completely alone in the world.

Relief washed over Baekhyun’s face. “The last time for me was Saturnalia. I mentioned something that wasn’t quite right… and they just _stopped_ noticing me. Like they’re — I don’t know, in on it.”

Beyond the inundation of revelation there was exuberant relief — liberation from an invisible burden at the discovery that he had not been alone all this while. The thought sent a thrill rushing through him, which he could see mirrored in the smile of disbelieving excitement spreading across the other boy’s lips. At the mention of Saturnalia he was seized by another thought — one that had escaped him time and time again, but this time he managed to snag it just before it vanished. “Baekhyun,” he started. “How long do you think you’ve been here?”

The smile disappeared from Baekhyun’s face as he started to think. He shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t remember anything but endless cycles of Saturnalias.”

“But we must’ve come from somewhere. We must’ve had a family. Maybe … maybe we just forgot.”

“But how could we forget?” Baekhyun asked. “We don’t remember anything — where did we come from? How did we get here? Why are our tribes at war?”

These were all questions that Chanyeol had asked himself, circling in his mind for hours but finding no answer to, until he just gave up or they just slipped out of his mind, and forgot what he’d even been thinking about. Now, hearing them spoken aloud, the hopelessness of those endless, frustrating hours of postulation came rushing back to him. “I’ve no idea. For a while I was looking for answers, but nobody seems to even think about it.”

“Well, at least we’re not alone anymore.” Unknowingly, they’d moved towards each other as they spoke, and Baekhyun’s face was startlingly close to his. Up close, his eyes were mesmerising, clear and deep in the soft light. “We’re in this together now.” Chanyeol couldn’t seem to look away, and he didn’t trust himself to say anything, so he just swallowed and nodded.

Probably noticing, Baekhyun let out a soft laugh, and his lips curved into a grin. “Your hair is beautiful,” he commented off-handedly. He reached out to lightly run his fingers through it, and Chanyeol’s skin tingled. “Like sunlight spun into silk.” His hand drifted downwards towards the curve of Chanyeol’s shoulders before pulling back.

Chanyeol had the urge to do the same to Baekhyun’s — his hair was dark and soft as ink, so different from the light, bright locks of the forest children. Everything about the boy looked soft and ethereal — his hair, his skin, his lips. His fingers twitched by his side, but he didn’t know if he was allowed.

Baekhyun straightened, pulling away. “The tide’s dropping.”

He was right. With every wave the sea was pulling back, receding several yards from the border.

Chanyeol stood. “We should look for somewhere to make camp for the night. While there’s still light.”

They walked along the coastline as the sun set, holding their shoes to avoid getting sand in, footprints imprinted on the flat reflective surf. All they could hear was the sound of waves, drowning out everything else, wrapping them up in complete isolation — it felt incredibly natural, walking quietly in their own world, perfectly in sync. The sea in twilight was overwhelming, chasing out all other sensation and thought, and Chanyeol felt as though that moment held all that was real in the world.

Some time on, they reached the base of the cliffs that housed the castle of Saturn. At the edge of the sand, where the seabed lifted off towards the cliffs, they could see a grotto carved into the side of the stone, separated from them by several metres of water — a break in the coast. It was clearly man-made, the arch too even to be natural.

Chanyeol had never noticed it before, and apparently Baekhyun hadn’t known about it either. Rolling up their pant legs, they waded through the water, arriving directly at the mouth of the grotto. The entryway was engraved with stone murals, but in the dim light they couldn’t make out any of the images. Further in, a curving stone stairwell led up to a circular room, its long floor-to-ceiling windows looking directly out into foliage. They were in a hollow clearing within the cliff, light trickling in through cavities bored through the stone.

“Wonder who built this place,” Chanyeol said, looking at the workmanship on the arched windows. Some panes were missing. “Looks like it’s been here a while.”

“Look at this.” Chanyeol followed Baekhyun’s gaze to the far end of the room, where a gate stood against solid wall.

He crossed the room. The gate came up to his waist, and while he couldn’t tell exactly in the lowlight, seemed to be made of a polished, translucent brown material like animal horn. Baekhyun reached out to touch the wall behind it, but it seemed solid. There were no latches or hidden trapdoors — nothing that would warrant gating.

It was yet another unanswered question to add to their list. Light was almost gone, and they headed back down the stairs to the exit. Further on past the cliffs, forest wrapped around the edge of the land, and they decided to backtrack and make camp at the base of the castle cliff. Chanyeol laid a hemp mat out on the sand, and as they settled down to rest, he pulled some food out of his bag — fruits, bread and some wrapped meat.

He didn’t have much — he’d only taken enough for one lunch. Strangely, he hadn’t been hungry in a while.

Baekhyun picked up on his hesitation. “Is something wrong?”

“I hadn’t even realised I haven’t eaten all day,” he said. “Feels like my brain just leaves my body.”

“Oh, I hadn’t realised either. I haven’t even had water.”

”There’s something really wrong with us, isn’t there?”

Baekhyun shrugged. “Least we’re not alone now.”

They split the food and ate. Afterwards, they lay facing the sky, watching the stars and planets.

“There’s something I wanted to ask you,” Baekhyun said, as they lay with their heads on the mat, getting ready to sleep. “When you guys came to the throne room to offer the truce. Why didn’t you speak? The others were clearly answering to you.”

Chanyeol paused. He’d never really thought about the reason. “I don’t think I’m the best at diplomacy.”

“How would you know?”

“I can rub people the wrong way, I think.” He couldn’t control it sometimes — it was like a compulsion to say the worst, rudest things at the most crucial moments. “You seem to handle it fine.”

“I don’t like being the leader. I’d default if I could, but I’ve nowhere else to go.”

“I’ve been to the edge,” Chanyeol said. He’d gone there alone once, driven by curiosity, and the sight had been so despairing he’d had to turn back immediately. “There’s absolutely nothing there. It’s land as far as the eye can see.”

“It’s hard to believe,” Baekhyun said, wistful. “Looking at _this_ , that there’s nothing else out there.”

Chanyeol knew what he meant. They were gazing up at millions of stars and planets in an incredibly vast galaxy; it was a delusional idea that Saturn was all there was. He wanted to believe in _something_ , too. “We could look again.”

“We’ll do it tomorrow,” Baekhyun said, as he drifted off. “Bring me to the edge.”

 

 

 

They set out as the sun rose, making for the Eastern edge of the forest, and by midday they’d arrived. Beyond the last row of trees lay vast barren wasteland, stretching as far as they could see. The edge of their world was an endless horizon of level, solid earth, uncracked and unwatered, devoid of any hint of life.

The sight was just as crushing as it had been the first time, but this time the horror was accompanied by a rush of adrenaline. Chanyeol glanced at Baekhyun, and finally, he spoke the words that had been lingering at the back of his mind, dying to be realised.

“This isn’t real, is it?” Baekhyun’s voice was distant, his eyes fixed on the horizon. “This entire world isn’t real. We’re in the afterlife. Or some kind of purgatory.”

“Not the afterlife.” Chanyeol was abruptly certain of it. Now that he could speak the words, they felt solid, real. He didn’t need confirmation. “The afterlife wouldn’t glitch like this world does. We’re in some kind of simulation, or a stream of consciousness.” Cautiously, he took a step forwards. He couldn’t seem to move beyond the forest. Each time he tried, space seemed to bend, bringing the forest further out with him — or swallowing the space he crossed with his stride.

Baekhyun looked on in disbelief. “Hell, how did you miss that the last time?”

Chanyeol’s mind was racing ahead. “Is there anywhere… can you think of a place that seems like a weak link? That didn’t seem right, but was hard to approach like all the questions we’d had yesterday.” They needed to trigger glitches. If they could get this world to fall apart, they could break through to reality.

“The castle library.” Baekhyun turned back towards the forest, focusing his thoughts. “Every time I’m in there, the place just rejects me. Makes me not want to read anything.”

“We need to go there, then. And read every book we’re not supposed to.”

They headed back through the forest, this time running. _It’s a simulation_ , Chanyeol thought. _Space isn’t real._ Sure enough, distance seemed to bend this time, the trees overlapping and melting into one another, hand-marked gravel trails superimposed onto one another.

They were on the bridge in minutes, walking through to the castle gates. It seemed unreal that it had only been one day ago that it all began, standing at that very spot.

Inside, the castle was curiously silent. Baekhyun looked around as he entered, possibly expecting to be greeted, but there didn’t seem to be a single soul about. They stood in the hallway, keeping silent, listening out for activity, and hearing nothing but the echo of wind.

“Where is everyone?” Chanyeol kept his voice low, but it echoed down the corridor, reverberating around the hall. “Could this be a trap?”

Baekhyun shook his head. His face was pale, like he’d seen a ghost. “Don’t think so. Let’s head up.”

The moment they entered the library, Chanyeol was overcome with the familiar feeling of dissociation. His mind was instantly clouded, attention slipping. He stared up at the worn frescoes on the ceiling, trying to concentrate on the reason they’d come, which was already growing fuzzy.

Baekhyun was already at the bookshelves, looking through the spines. “What are we looking for?”

“Something out of place.” The world had already changed since they’d gained awareness — it had to be at least partially subject to their subconscious. “Or actually… ”

If they could bend time and space in the forest, they could find the blind spot in their awareness. They’d just have to push everything else into the background.

They sat at opposite ends of the long table and closed their eyes, focusing. The thick haze was familiar to his mind, but Chanyeol focused on the one strand of truth he was sure of: that this world was false; that they had another life somewhere in a different world. Everything else around them was illusory. He pushed it all back, visualising a single beam of clarity coming towards him through the clouds. With all his strength he strained to grasp it, moving forwards towards the light.

The instant he made contact with the truth, the fog in his mind dissipated. Instincts forced him to his feet, bringing him over to the shelves by the window. He knew exactly what he was looking for, and he ran a hand along the length of the lowest shelf, naturally coming to rest on the spine of a thin red book. Senses tingling, he pulled it out and held it in both hands.

Time seemed to freeze. Light from the window reflected off its smooth, plain leather cover. He stared, wondering what kind of revelation was waiting behind it.

Baekhyun sprung to his feet, racing over to stand by him. “Quick — open it.”

Hands shaking inexplicably, Chanyeol flipped the cover open. There was no title printed, no table of contents — just page after page of uniform black text. Panic was gripping him in a tight hold, and he was torn between the intense desire to look away and burning, sick curiosity. His eyes flew across the lines, heart thumping so hard he felt he was about to explode.

The pounding of blood in his ears grew with every word, until he finally reached the last line. _And a single step into the void will condemn an eternity of oblivion._

Chanyeol slammed the book shut and tried to slow his breathing.

Baekhyun had finished reading before him, and he was looking ahead, out the library door, his face fixed in a mask of horror. Numb, Chanyeol followed his gaze to see… brilliant white light, so bright it sent spots flashing across his vision. The corridor leading from the library door had faded into nothing; the massive stone castle around them vanished as though it had never existed. The same white light beamed in from every window — their library was floating, completely isolated, in a sea of it.

“Oh my fucking god.” The sheer unbelievability of the situation seemed to temper the panic, snap him out of his daze. Chanyeol took several slow steps towards the doors, peering into the light. There was nothing visible beneath them — no way out of the room. “We’re disconnecting from Saturn. Now that we’re aware, it’s falling apart.”

“We’re out of time.” Baekhyun paced back towards the table, fists clenching and unclenching, lost in thought. “The route out is where only the real can exist,” he quoted. “Where…?”

“So here. The library. It’s all that’s left.” The only place that held a semblance of truth in a false world.

Baekhyun looked away, his eyebrows pulling together. “No. Only the real can exist. Plenty of the other kids have been in here. They weren’t real.” His voice caught on the last word. “The sea — that’s our escape. The monsters couldn’t reach us there.”

“Is everyone else a figment of the virtual world then? All the kids? It’s just us in here?”

“Probably,” Baekhyun said. “That’s why they vanished when we realised the truth.”

“And why none of the others ever set foot on the beach.”

“So… how are we going to get there?” His voice was remarkably calm. “We can’t step into the void.”

A single idea was circling in his mind, taking form. “We need to reconnect. Our awareness is what dismantled Saturn. If we lose that awareness we can just walk out.”

“How are we supposed to lose awareness? We’ve already read the damn book.” His voice was rough with frustration.

“Everything in there is what we already knew.” Chanyeol felt sure he was right. Somehow, he had to be more attuned to mental manipulation and control than Baekhyun was. “We didn’t have the awareness before, but we’d known. Focus on what’s real about this world, not what’s false. Think of anything but what we just read.”

Baekhyun gave him a look somewhere between confusion and incredulity. Still, he refrained from retorting, instead closing his eyes in focus. Chanyeol kept his eyes open, staring straight out of the door. As with finding the book of secrets, forcing his mind into submission was shockingly easy, almost habitual. He reined his thoughts in with a tight hold, forcing all panic and loss to drain out, allowing the light to bleach it out of him. The light flooded his mind, and he summoned all the conviction he could — his strongest beliefs that the sea was the truth, that it was still out there, and that they could build a bridge to it.

As he watched, a strand coiled soundlessly out of the mist, reaching towards the doors of the library, and partially solidified, thickening into a tenuous ribbon that pushed up against the carpeted floor.

“Baekhyun,” Chanyeol said faintly, and Baekhyun’s eyelids flew open. “Will you do what I say?”

“Yes?”

“Walk ahead of me.”

Thankfully, Baekhyun complied without contest, passing through the doorway and placing a tentative foot on the ribbon of semi-corporeal walkway. It seemed to hold weight; at least, his foot did not pass right through. He paused for a moment to prepare himself, and then he set both feet onto the pathway, until he appeared to be suspended mid-air in the light.

He walked, and Chanyeol followed. The mist was cold and suffocatingly dry, sucking in warmth like a vacuum. Ahead of them, the path was constantly forming, coils of mist joining the lattice. He kept his mind focused on the single goal of not losing their corridor, thinking only of the sea, looking only at the soft outline of shoulder blades through the back of Baekhyun’s shirt, likening them to the crests of waves. As they left the library behind, the light seemed to grow in intensity, searing into the back of his head.

They walked for what felt like an eternity, the sea still nowhere in sight. And then suddenly, Chanyeol took a step forward and his foot met with soft, warm sand. A breeze blew gently through his hair, and he blinked his surroundings into focus, readjusting from the blinding light. They had arrived on the beach. Night had fallen.

The sea stretched out ahead of them, dark and raging. Glancing over his shoulder, Chanyeol saw that the forest was behind them again — and the Castle up on its cliff, in all its majestic, ruined glory. Its windows glowed with light. They were back in safe territory, anchored to reality.

He exhaled and released the reins on his mind. As the thoughts came flooding back, some threads of the past shimmered into his mind, taking shape. Somewhere in the real world, there’d been a city called Seoul. It was his hometown. The image was fragmented but vividly coloured, staggeringly rich and solid compared to the confusing, dreamlike consciousness of Saturn.

“Well, I guess we know what kind of simulation we’re in,” Baekhyun said. His tone was still nonchalant, though he looked shaken.

Chanyeol nodded. “My subconscious.” It made sense — why he’d had an instinctual understanding of the way this world worked. Everything in the book was what he already knew, and some part of his subconscious constructed this world to keep it concealed. Baekhyun had been seeing the signs for a while, but nothing had changed until today. Contextless emotions and sensations from his life were slowly coming back to him, confusing and overwhelming. “Is there anything you’re remembering?”

“Bits and pieces. I can’t comprehend everything.” Baekhyun paused, collecting scattered thoughts. “But... I think I know why we’re in here together.”

Baekhyun held his gaze. His eyes were bright as the black diamond sky. Chanyeol realised, in that moment, that this was the reason for all of it. Him and Baekhyun. Everything they’d been through here, and probably the reason they were in here in the first place.

“Yeah,” he managed, voice rough with emotion. “Whatever else was going on, I know I loved you.” His chest felt achingly empty, as though hurting from the loss of those missing emotions. He couldn’t yet feel everything he had once felt, but he knew how frighteningly overpowering those feelings had been. Even now, just looking at the other boy standing in the cool night, knowing that he was the only thing real in the world, felt like gravity was pulling him in.

There was something else he remembered — a room where the light wouldn’t find him. He couldn’t remember specifics, but something told him he didn’t really want to.

“I remember they locked you up. You were in jail.”

Chanyeol shook his head. “I’m not there anymore. I wouldn’t be here if I was.”

Baekhyun looked as though he wanted to say something more, but then he looked away. “Let’s find the gate.”

They weren’t far off. As they walked in silence, Chanyeol’s mind flowed with incomprehensible snapshots of his real life and hazy memories of this one. He thought of all the nights he’d spent in their cabin in the woods, nights and days he’d spent fighting alongside his guys. They had lost lives twice in painful, sobering experiences. How meaningless the blood and carnage and suffering had been. Not one of them was real — a single thought was enough to send them all into oblivion.

Still, there were things he already missed about Saturn. The stars and sea. The feeling of running free through the wild forest at night, blind and lost yet knowing exactly where he was going, like some long-forgotten instinct was propelling him in the right direction. Now he knew that it’d been his subconscious, rather than instinct — the same subconscious that built this world they inhabited. No matter how much danger had appeared to surround them, he had always been perfectly safe, because he would not harm himself.

Much too fast, they reached the edge of the beach, where the sand clustered into rocks. They left their shoes behind them, wading through the cool water towards the opening of the cave. It was chilly inside, the floor damp against their bare feet. Everything looked exactly the same as it had the day before. There was no aura of light around the horn gates, no swirling portal of darkness in the rock crevice. It stood in its corner, redundant-looking and unremarkable apart from its jarringly fine, luminous texture.

“Before we do anything.” Baekhyun’s voice echoed around the dark chamber. “Does doing this even make sense? My memories aren’t clear, but I can tell things weren’t perfect back in the other life. You might be in prison. There’s gotta be a reason we decided to come in here.”

Internally, Chanyeol agreed. “But that’s supposing we didn’t find out, and this world works the way it should. Or if we didn’t know _how_ it works. Now that we’ve read the manual, can we keep existing here?”

“We could,” Baekhyun said. “If we stay here on the shore and don’t venture back into the forest. We have some of our awareness back now, and we won’t be drifting.”

The idea sounded dangerously tempting.

What lay ahead of them was unknown. If they’d interpreted the book correctly, they would return to reality, but neither of them knew what to expect. Their circumstances could be horrible. He could be in prison. They could be in separate places, and they might never find each other.

Chanyeol couldn’t bring himself to think about it. “What kind of world do you think it was?” The words came tumbling out in spite of himself.

Baekhyun shrugged. “There has to be a reason why you’re familiar with this kind of self-hypnosis. I’d bet it’s a much harsher place than we have here. Life here was always easy, even when it wasn’t perfect.”

“It _was_ perfect... once upon a time.”

“Probably my fault. This is your simulation, so it was designed to fool you not me. Things started messing up when I started getting thoughts.”

“It could be my fault, too. Maybe I wanted to leave, somewhere deep down, and that’s why it imploded.”

Baekhyun was still hesitating. “Will we even remember this place when we wake up? Can we rethink this for a second?”

They could stay on that shore, alone with the sea. They were in his subconscious, so they would never age, never starve. They could protect their peace and escape from whatever horrors awaited them on the other side of the gate.

But there were other ways to suffer, Chanyeol thought, to perish slowly from yearning and frustration. “Is this what we want, though? This... empty existence? If we’ve always wanted to know there was something more than Saturn, it must mean we haven’t given up. There’s a part of us that still wants a chance out there.”

Baekhyun’s shoulders slumped. “I know. You’re right. I’m just not ready to jump in — or out.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever be ready. But we’ve got no real choice.” They’d already found the way out. At some point they would just have to take the chance.

There was a prolonged silence. Trepidation built slowly from the base of Chanyeol’s spine.

“Alright,” Baekhyun said finally. “Let’s see what we find.”

Chanyeol reached out to unlatch the gates. They swung quietly open, but the alcove behind remained solid grey rock. Once again, he let the thoughts slide out of his mind. He erased every element of belonging he felt to his false body, his false identity and this false world.

 _See you on the other side… or not,_ Chanyeol thought. They had no way of knowing if they would see each other again, but he knew that he would be looking. Neither of them wanted to speak the word, to say goodbye.

Sudden panic seized hold of him, and he reached out to take the other boy’s face in his hands, locking their lips together.

Baekhyun kissed him back.

It could’ve been the loneliest moment of his life. On the very edge of oblivion, in a collapsing world populated by non-entities, unsure even of his own reality. But at that moment, he felt completely anchored. Nobody could claim this moment wasn’t real, not when he was feeling so powerfully and so vividly. How could it be fake? Baekhyun’s hair, tangled in his fingers, was real. Baekhyun’s lips, pressing against his, were real. His warmth was real; Chanyeol could feel it on his skin. From his uneven breathing, Chanyeol knew he was real. Chanyeol’s eyes flickered open for a second, and he could see the sky outside their tower room. It was brightening. Dawn was approaching.

When they pulled apart, it was as though the world of Saturn had already fallen off from beneath their feet. Wordlessly, Baekhyun reached out to lace their fingers together. Hand in hand, they took a deep breath and stepped through the gates.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing Chanyeol registered was the lingering feeling that he’d missed out on a whole other life.

As his eyes flashed open, there was a soft whir of machinery, and a shadow lifted away from his face, letting in grey light. His overblown pupils constricted sharply and he gasped for breath. The first few breaths were painful. The air that hit the back of his throat was heavy and smoky, floating slowly into his lungs. Apart from the sound of his own laboured breathing, the room was silent. As far as he could tell, he was alone.

For several terrifying moments, he struggled to move his wasted limbs, lying completely immobile in the narrow space. Then abruptly, his muscles twitched and shuddered as though electrocuted, and he felt strength shoot back towards the ends of his body. He sat up, pushing with his hands, and climbed out of the contraption.

There were needles inserted into both his forearms, infusing him with sustenance. His skin stung as he pulled them out. He was in a small, square room without windows, the walls padded, the person-sized pod he’d just climbed out of its only furniture. He crouched, examining the surface. There were no visible identifiers or labels. The top surface was cut in a strange shape, with a central raised portion and the sides dropping off at orthogonal angles, and it seemed to be coated in a flexible skin of what Chanyeol recognised as radar-absorbent material. For whatever reason, the pod had been modified with stealth countermeasures. The pod was positioned over an energy vault, its glow dimmed by a light layer of dust. It clearly had been running unmonitored for some time.

As he stood, he felt something in his pocket and reached in to check. There was a slip of paper there with a few words, written in unfamiliar handwriting.

_If you’re seeing this, the plan failed. Get out before you’re found._

Chanyeol’s heart accelerated.

He stepped out of the door and emerged onto a busy, narrow corridor packed with people. It took him a few moments to get orientated. The corridor was a crosswalk, passing neatly between two uniform rows of identical glass towers. Through its glass walls he could see a dark sky, though the city below it was still bright, every sign and structure traced in lights.

Keeping his head down, he joined the flow of people moving down the corridor, looking and listening for anything that might tell him where he was. He was pretty close to the ground — or at least it seemed like it. It was hard to tell, without a single visible inch of pavement to guide him — the glass towers seemed to descend directly into massive underground complexes of varying depths. Directly above him, a thick knot of bridges and walkways completely obscured the sky from view.

Most of the crowd walked quickly and silently, not making eye contact. At the end of the crosswalk he found himself in a mostly empty office lobby, with vertical conveyors all around the sides. Stepping into one of the columns, he ascended two hundred storeys and emerged onto an open-air bridge, crossing in the middle elevations of the city.

By his waist, a sign affixed to the barrier read “Wiryeseong-daero, E225”. As Chanyeol walked out into open air, the cold pierced straight through to his bones. He had on only a black T-shirt and pants, and his bare arms were covered in visible scars. At the back of his mind, he noted that he’d have to cover it up somehow to avoid attracting attention.

He walked to the side of the bridge, taking in the city. The night sky was cloudy with a haze of light and air pollution, but the city itself was a galaxy of lights. Brutal, gargantuan buildings — starscrapers — surrounded him from all directions, their million windows resembling stars, dramatic in their scale and facelessness. Every other structure was covered in moving billboards, some flashing with news updates, most playing advertisement reels. From the screens, he learnt that it was three AM in the morning, yet the city was alive — interchanges bustling with pedestrians, rooftop stadiums brilliant with spotlights, airways busy with lowcrafts navigating through crosswalks, and higher up, sleeker, faster-flying airships. Trains hurtled past in short intervals, a hundred different types running at different elevations. As he stood there in the cold, the groaning sound of engines filled the air, and a mammoth black flyer emerged from beneath him like a spacecraft, turning at a right angle to begin a vertical ascent, blocking out the sky and casting the entire block into shadow. The wind sent his hair flying, and he gripped onto the railing to remain upright.

The sight should’ve been awe-inspiring, but he felt curiously detached from it all. None of the sights were new to him, and they didn’t surprise him in any way. He was immersed in an environment that should’ve been utterly familiar — he felt sure that he knew every inch of this city, but at the same time, it was as though someone had pulled a curtain over his brain, preventing him from accessing the knowledge.

He remembered fragments — his name was Park Chanyeol, and he was from Seoul, the city he was now in. A lighted billboard told him the date was the 13th of December 2121, and he couldn’t remember when it was he’d gone into simulation, but he didn’t feel like he’d known a city vastly different from what he was seeing. He’d known people here who could tell him, he thought. If he could only remember where to find them...

A screen directly behind the bridge flickered on, and rays of light filled his peripheral vision. He turned around and was instantly enveloped in white light, each pixel the size of his head. Looking over the edge, there seemed to be a caption maybe twenty storeys down, the words flashing bright red, but he was too close to make out the words or image.

Chanyeol continued down the bridge, and minutes later he arrived in a bustling multi-level interchange. At the dock, well-groomed men and women in sharp-cut trench coats alighted from sleek chauffeur-driven shuttles. They mixed in with working crowds in beat-up leather of varying shades of grey and brown, heading into the various stores that lined the perimeter, exiting via the crosswalks that extended out like a starburst. Chanyeol stopped by two stores that looked the most crowded, picking up takeaway food and a hooded jacket. With the extreme volume of transiters, nobody gave him a second look as he joined the queue and followed everyone else, scanning the metal band slotted around his left forearm to make payment.

 _Get out before you’re found_ , the note had said. Pulling up his hood, Chanyeol kept moving, taking one of the crosswalks out of the interchange. It brought him past a closed theatre, the flashing posters displayed out front advertising a rock opera. The sight tugged at something in his memory, and he paused in front of the doors. He’d been here before. He stared at the posters, hoping desperately for something to jog his memory, but his mind remained hopelessly blank.

Frustration crept up his throat. He had so many questions — why had he been in simulation? Who was he supposed to be running from? Who was he, and where was he from? He was fighting with his own mind, but it was stubbornly denying him any answers.

Having no alternative, he continued wandering, ascending through the elevations in search of somewhere less populated, where he wouldn’t be spotted as easily. Eventually, he found himself back on an outdoor bridge, this time four hundred storeys high, the level of the highest train lines. Stepping out from the conveyor, he could glimpse mountains in the distance, the tops of starscrapers stretching out before him in a field of dark glassy spires.

And then he registered what was playing on the biggest billboard, plastered along the side of the building. Tangled blonde hair, hollowed cheeks, big, shadowed eyes brimming with manic energy. His own face, with his name spelled out in flashing capitals right below it.

PARK CHANYEOL, 26. DEVIANT, DISSIDENT  
WANTED ALIVE, REWARD 1 BILLION ₩.

The screen was split in half, his face occupying the left half, while the other side played a looping reel of his crimes. He watched detachedly as a massive concrete complex went up in smoke, and a lone light-haired figure was pictured walking calmly away from the wreckage. The film continued to play, skipping through scenes of him fighting off a squadron of robotic police with fire, running from aerial shooters, even jumping out of a lowcraft onto a snowy mountainside.

There were smaller words printed underneath the glowing caption: “Do not attempt to subdue. Avoid direct eye contact. Rewards for helpful information only. Anyone found harbouring will be subject to criminal punishment.” And in the very corner, Chanyeol’s eyes found a small label spelled out in capitals: DAEDALUS. That single word sent a shot of adrenaline running through his being, like some kind of primal, self-preservatory instinct.

He looked away from the billboard, and realised with a dull jolt that the same video of him was playing on every giant screen — hundreds of them, row after row, stretching out as far as he could see. There would not be a single person in the city who wouldn’t see it.

That was why he’d been warned. He was a dissident — a wanted political criminal.

As he watched the looping films, small things began to come back to him. He was a deviant — a mutant, one of the Gifted. There were others like him, whom he had known and grown up with. He’d worked here in Seoul, and later moved on to Busan. He was wanted alive for an astronomical reward, which meant the authorities or Daedalus had other plans in mind for him. They must’ve been the ones to exile him to the stream for his involvement in a political feud, though he could not remember his capacity.

Still, he felt surprisingly calm in the wake of this revelation. Judging from the clips, he was used to being under fire. He now knew what he was capable of, and felt sure he could handle anything. Experimentally, he extended a hand, and fire bloomed across his palms, dripping from his fingers like liquid. Curls of flame tumbled across the floor, which he quickly stomped out before they could escalate. Clearly, he had more trouble restraining his powers than getting them to work.

He had to decide where to go. Could he leave the country? He’d be harder to find, and could possibly start over somewhere new. The possibility lingered in his mind, but Chanyeol shook it off. Leaving wasn’t an option — what if he never remembered? With no memories, he had nothing to lose; nothing to be afraid of. His first priority had to be finding out who he was and why they wanted him alive. For that, he had to find the other deviants.

Forcing himself to concentrate, a memory began to take shape of a “safe place” he’d stored in his mind — somewhere he’d been often, that he’d associated with protection. The outline of a door appeared in his head, coated in dark lacquer, and an ornate gold knocker shaped like a dragon’s head. He focused as hard as he could, willing the door to open in his mind’s eye, but he could not lift the knocker.

At the back of his mind, it occurred to him that he could be leading himself down an entirely wrong path. What if his memory had been manipulated? His instincts could be guiding him straight into the lion’s mouth.

He had no way of knowing. He’d have to go to Busan and see for himself.

 

 

◊ ◈ ◊

 

 

Chanyeol developed a new appreciation for the city’s sprawling quality as he weaved through abandoned back balconies and derelict sky-bridges, making for the city’s Easternmost train terminal. From a distance, he could see rooftop hangars across the central districts rolling open in quick succession, and small fast-flyers spreading out in all directions. He didn’t have to guess what they were searching for. With a billion won on his head, every mercenary in the city would also be hunting him, and while he wasn’t afraid of them, he couldn’t afford to be intercepted before getting to his destination.

Developments grew more industrial as he reached the outer parts of the city, and though the hunters didn’t seem to have left the city centre, he’d be easy to find once they did. If they knew for a fact he was in Seoul, it would be only hours before they combed every inch of the place. He ran without stopping, keeping an eye out for the searchers, pausing only briefly to catch his breath. Subconsciously, he knew exactly which directions to take, where to ascend and descend, which routes would be least trafficked.

The sun was coming up by the time he arrived at the station. The ten-feet tall glass gantries were gated with wristplate panels, but to Chanyeol’s relief, no visible profile scanners. Along the platforms, long, silvery trains were docked in the tracks — streamline bullet trains, boxy low-speed city railways, medium-speed wind trains, all gleaming in morning light. Among them, the wind rail ran at the highest elevations, and there wouldn’t be as many passengers — most working commuters would opt for faster bullet trains. Chanyeol made his decision in a split second as he passed through the gates, slotting his wrist into the allotted panel and heading for the Jeju-bound wind train.

Chanyeol finally stopped running as he ducked behind the doors, and for several minutes he just leaned against the wall, panting hard, trying to recover his breath. A train conductor approached him to check his wristplate, and Chanyeol’s heart almost stopped before he registered its mechanical voice and chrome visage. Once the doors slid shut, he allowed himself a moment of relief. He’d done it. He was on his way.

The train tilted backwards on its axis, beginning a steep climb into the stratosphere. Chanyeol’s first act was to walk up and down the train carriage, making sure there were no live screens playing his highlight reel. There were a few other passengers, most of them asleep in capsules with the doors shut. He was probably safe for the next few hours.

He took a quick shower in one of the train’s shower capsules, then climbed into an upper sleeping pod, sliding the vented panel shut. There was a control panel on the wall, and Chanyeol scrolled through the options, selecting Songjeong Beach as his destination. It would wake him up before they arrived. He lay down on the pillow, fastened the safety strap, and was asleep as soon as he shut his eyes.

As he dropped off into darkness, a scene swam into his vision. There was a black sky full of stars. A massive sphere of the gas planet, swirling gold and amber, obscuring the moon. A hexagonal room with arched windows overlooking trees, some of its panes missing. He was in a forest, and there was a boy with him, cloaked in white flowing clothing that floated around him like curling mist. They were running through the trees, their feet never touching the earth. He felt different — younger and more childlike. They were free. Incandescent. They were all that was real in the world.

He was woken by an alarm, sounding through the speakers next to his head. Chanyeol opened his eyes slowly, ears filling with the harsh sound of wind surging through a tunnel. There was something cold on his face, and as he reached up to touch his cheeks he found wet tears, cool from the vented air. His chest was heavy with with emotion, a desperate longing for something he barely remembered — a hazy vision of paradise, and a mysterious boy’s face, rapidly fading from his mind. Chanyeol lay perfectly still, struggling to recall, but was interrupted by a robotic voice from the speakers.

“Calling at Songjeong Beach. This train terminates at Haeundae.”

All recollection of his dream dissipated. Haeundae was his eventual destination, but Chanyeol felt sure there would be a stakeout waiting for him at its station. He’d have to make the remainder of the journey on foot. Alighting from the train, he stopped on the platform to map the city in his mind. He could see most of the surrounding area from his elevation, and a good part of the city seemed to be built over the ocean, silver towers and globes rising from a glittering bay, linked by a network of highways on stilts that wound and curved between structures like tentacles. Further on from the beaches, most of the coastline was completely invisible, overgrown by a thicket of thin silver spires which Chanyeol recognised as submarine elevators, sending workers and products to and from ports and factories on the ocean floor. To the west, a huge part of the city lay in ruins, reduced to charred rubble as though it had been hit by an asteroid. The blast zone was now filled with mechanical cranes, sliding up and down as they reconstructed the area.

Refocusing on the intact part of the city, Chanyeol saw with relief that his face was absent from the large screens, which were all playing advertisements of some kind. Even the newsreels he’d seen in Seoul were nowhere to be found — either they hadn’t expected him to come to Busan, or far more likely, they didn’t have ownership of these screens. Still, there was no way that none of the hackers and mercenaries had tracked him to Busan — they would be out there somewhere, searching for him. He was lucky he’d been wanted alive, or it would be only too easy for them to take him down from the air.

In the centre of the densest neighbourhood stood a hotel, towering over most of the structures in its vicinity. A spinning globe capped off its reflective gold facade. Even from his distance, the loading dock was visible, hulking air limos pulling in one after another.

Chanyeol knew the place. It wasn’t the destination he had in mind, but if his memories were correct, he’d have to wait till nightfall anyway. There were a couple of things he still needed, and the Globe was probably the best place to get them, he thought. Pulling back from the railing, he set off towards the conveyors, bouncing possible plans of action around in his mind.

 

 

◊ ◈ ◊

 

 

From the air, only a gold ring-shaped platform was visible — the landing pad, floating a short distance above the water. There were words engraved into it, visible from the air: INTO THE ABYSS. Overhead, aerial limousines hovered in the dark sky, visible only by the sparkle of their position lights. Ten at a time, they dove towards the platform, coming to stop alongside its circumference as passengers alighted onto the ring.

The guests were a varied mix of ravers, regulars and members, every last one cloaked in dark leather. The ravers were instantly identifiable by the glint of deep blues and violets, colours of the sea, and the intricate Renaissance-style paintings inked into their arms and faces. These were the young elite, connected second or third-generations wanting admission to the country’s most exclusive night lounge. The regulars were older, wealthier and more discreet, mostly private room holders, wanting an isolated venue for whatever illicit or escapist reasons. And then there were the members, people who made their living off places like these, job-searching and working by night.

Chanyeol stepped out of his hijacked flyer onto the platform, the stolen clothes pulling slightly over his shoulders. He’d narrowly made it in time for his drop. The flyers took off again, sending wind rushing through his hair. He turned to face away from the circle, relieved for the cloak of night. From where he stood, all he could see was the columns of light, formed from upward-facing spotlights around the ring, and the shadowy forms of other guests in between.

“Your arm, please.” The bouncer had reached him. Chanyeol raised his arm, not meeting his eyes, and the man lowered a giant golden stamp onto the back of his hand, pressing firmly.

At his feet, water began to ripple, and then a large steel sphere broke the surface, floating gently upwards to come level with the platform. His ride to the bottom had arrived. A panel slid open in the front, and Chanyeol stepped into the bathysphere. Inside, a velvet seat curved around the interior. Chanyeol sat, reaching out to grasp one of the rails that extended from floor to ceiling in a circle of columns.

The airlock slid shut, and the bathyspheres plunged south. Instantly, the pressure made Chanyeol’s ears pop, and he was overcome with intense claustrophobia. Being surrounded with so much water made him feel suffocated. There were lights in the sphere, but the ocean outside was pitch dark through the porthole. He was effectively blind. The fear mounted steadily, and he fought hard not to panic. As he shot downwards, the shock seemed to awake a fresh surge of memories, thoughts and sensations flooding into his mind.

He felt sure he was entering home territory. He’d been here before, and memories were coming back to him in snapshots — his first, terrifying bathysphere ride in the early days of working his way up the ranks, wild nights of debauchery, tension-fraught transactions, a shouted confrontation in a private room. It had all happened here somehow, miles below the surface of the sea.

The sound of water vanished abruptly as the bathysphere slid neatly into what Chanyeol assumed was a pressure-controlled capsule. Chanyeol exhaled, his heart beginning to slow. A roof sealed shut above him, and water was drained out of the capsule before the trapdoors below burst open and the sphere continued its smooth, soundless descent down a column of white fluorescent light.

Eventually, it slid to a stop at the bottom of the tube and the doors opened. It took him a few moments to get up and step out, still shaken by the drop and numb from adrenaline that had been powering him for what felt like days. He walked down the industrial corridor, heading towards the sliding doors at the end.

The music found him first, aquatic woodwinds textured with a trancelike synthesiser, pulsing just strongly enough to dull his senses. He was standing on the perimeter of a giant glass dome, external steel beams overgrown with glowing sea grapes and anemone, its centre supported by a wide column with a spiral staircase and private rooms built into the interior. Some instinct or memory homed his gaze in on the rooms stacked above each other in the tower, and right at the top, he caught the deep blue reflect of door glazing, and the faint glint of gold — it had to be the dragon knocker.

The atrium was not yet at full capacity. Chanyeol could still clearly see the division of spaces within the dome — from quieter dining booths, upholstered in leather, to long smoking bars, glass bongs serving as placeholders, their pipes descending from a faux ceiling. The floor was interspersed with spotlit glass cubes housing groups of partygoers, most still standing and conversing with drinks in hand. They’d be conveniently blind to what was happening outside their chambers, Chanyeol thought, given most of the atrium was lit only by dim bioluminescence and refracted rainbows. The prismatic hues tugged at something in his memory as he slipped between guests and workers, making for the central tower.

At the base of the tower was a pair of darkly tinted glass doors enclosing an identification chamber, flanked by the chrome droids Chanyeol recognised as mutant-owned. He braced himself as he arrived before them, but neither moved an inch as the doors slid open and Chanyeol entered the doorway and had his profile scanned. The far panel blinked green, and split open to allow his passage. Apparently, he was still on the database.

The staircase wound around the tower, breaking every floor at the doors to the private suites. He took the stairs three or four at a time until faced with a lacquered door, and the carved dragon knocker of his memory. Heart pounding, Chanyeol lifted it and let go, letting the metal fall back against the door. The knocker bounced evenly three times against the door, and with a hiss of hydraulics, swung slowly open.

The room was small and high-ceilinged, clearly set up for a meeting with high-backed chairs surrounding a circular table. As the door opened, complete silence fell. Every seat was occupied, every face turned towards him with the same expression of surprised terror. Except one — there was a man sitting at the far end, longish brown hair slicked deliberately back, dressed in a suit over a dark silk shirt.

Chanyeol knew the man. The look on his face was confusing — perhaps a mixture of shock and anger — but he remained calm.

“Get downstairs. All of you,” he said.

Everyone else stood on command, turning to leave. They were a mixture of male and female, all young and athletic-looking. Not one of them met Chanyeol’s eyes as they filed quickly out of the room.

They were alone in the room. Junmyeon stood, and he definitely didn’t seem pleased to see him. His mouth was flattened into a line, his eyes betraying barely contained panic. “You bastard, what the fuck are you doing here?”

Yeah, Chanyeol definitely remembered him. His lip curled as he walked forwards. “What do you think?”

“Who let you out?” Junmyeon’s voice was cold.

“I don’t remember what the fuck you did to me, but I don’t care about that right now. Tell me why I’ve got a hundred million won on my head.”

“You…” Junmyeon’s forehead creased. He looked as though he was struggling not to punch Chanyeol. “You need to leave. Are you being followed?”

“Maybe. So get talking, and then I’ll decide whether to leave you in peace. What do they want from me?”

“You’re a real son of a bitch, know that? Even when fucking amnesic.” Junmyeon’s voice was still calm, but his eyes were hard. He was looking straight at Chanyeol now, arms folded. “Were you captured? Did someone bust you out of the stream?”

“No. I found myself alone in a room.” Alone, without a single memory in his head.

For a moment, Junmyeon was quiet, processing the information. Then he let out a derisive laugh. “So you let yourself out. Which means you actually thought you stood a chance out here.”

Chanyeol couldn’t believe he’d managed to forget how _frustrating_ the man could be. “Are you capable of talking straight or do I have to force it out of you?” he asked, anger raising his voice.

At the tone of his voice, Junmyeon looked away. “Daedalus wants you because you tried to topple them, you absolute fucking idiot. And we’re taking no further part in it. So just get out. Run and don’t show your face here again.”

His nerve made Chanyeol want to laugh. “Do you think I’m gonna take instructions from you?” He knew Junmyeon was in charge — but now he also knew Junmyeon had never been able to control him.

“You’re always doing whatever the fuck you want to do, consequences or other people be fucked. You always have.”

For some reason, Junmyeon was still looking everywhere but at him, as though he wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in what Chanyeol had to say. Incensed, Chanyeol grabbed hold of his shoulder, resisting when the man tried violently to shake him off. “I don’t have time for this. People are after me.” He locked the man in a viselike grip, looking him in the eyes. “Why am I a target?”

A strange surge of power flowed under Chanyeol’s skin, and for a moment the shock slackened his grip. But Junmyeon’s gaze was rapidly losing its focus, and when he answered it was through gritted teeth, as though trying to stop himself speaking. “Daedalus wants you because of what you did.”

“What did I do?” Chanyeol held him fast, refusing to break contact. He was back in control. The ability was coming back now, like it’d never left him.

“You tried to take them down,” Junmyeon said, his voice strangled. “You were never happy with our life. They locked you up but you escaped from prison.”

The mention of prison triggered a vivid memory — of a dark chamber without air, a video of a building complex going up in flames. “How did I end up in the stream?”

“We sent you in.”

That was something he hadn’t expected. “And why?”

“To make a deal of peace. We traded your neutralisation for our preservation.”

“Are you fucking serious — my neutralisation?” Chanyeol’s grip tightened, voice climbing to a growl. It took almost no effort now; power rushed through him swifter than ever, elevating him to a sick high. “What gives you the right?”

Junmyeon’s expression was strained, but his voice was remorseless. “Yeah, you deserved it.”

They were face to face, the anger between them so thick it was almost palpable. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t hurt you right now.”

“Want to try it?” Junmyeon’s shoulders were slumped in his hands, but there was a challenge in his words. “We’re at the bottom of the ocean, if you’ve forgotten. Try starting a fire here, let’s see how that goes.”

“You can’t do anything to me if I won’t let you.” Chanyeol was sure of it.

“And how do you plan on getting out of here? You know they’ve followed you.”

“That’s for me to deal with. Tell me why they want me alive and why they think I’d come quietly.”

Junmyeon was struggling not to speak. “You don’t want to hear it.”

“Tell.” Chanyeol put added force behind his words, pushing at Junmyeon’s will with all his strength.

It cracked. Instantaneously, Junmyeon’s face went blank. “I don’t know where Baekhyun is, so most likely he’s been taken hostage.”

“Who’s –” the words were almost out of his mouth, but he stopped short, unable to believe what he’d been about to say. Byun Baekhyun, he thought. He remembered in a split second.

In his shock, he let go of Junmyeon and the spell broke.

Scenes and images whizzed through his mind, blurring into each other. Somewhere next to him, Junmyeon was straightening up, fixing his collar. “You’re not seriously going to go after him. You’re fucking crazy.”

Chanyeol ignored him. His mind was so full, the world felt like it was turning.

“For fuck’s sake, Chanyeol. I bought you your life the first time around. Run away while you still can.”

His patronising tone snapped Chanyeol back to the present. “Yeah, saving my life was always the goal, was it?” He could barely contain his anger. “Betraying _me_ is one thing, how could you do that to Baekhyun? How could you exile him with me?”

The last gaps were filling. He remembered the kind of man he’d been, his body count, his ruthlessness and recklessness. He remembered the stream, and the man who’d been in there with him.

“We didn’t touch him. He demanded to follow you into the stream.”

Chanyeol barely registered Junmyeon’s voice. He remembered Daedalus now. While it was impossible to miss their dominance stamped all over world that surrounded him, he hadn’t realised what business they had with him — or all of his people.

Deviants were allowed to coexist with Daedalus’ society, but in tightly controlled isolation. It was the same case all across the world, even outside of the East Asian region. They were confined to the underground scene: drugs, gambling, prostitution, contract killing, property theft. He was standing in one of the operating headquarters for it. They were organised criminals on a massive scale, but Daedalus turned a blind eye — as long as they kept a low profile.

Junmyeon was snakehead of their hive, but Chanyeol, with his wild ideas and dark visions, and his ability to mess with people’s minds, had never been truly subservient. Life as a paid criminal had never been enough for him. He’d seen the formidable potential the deviants had, and he envisioned a society they could dominate instead of hide from. “There’s got to be more for us. We’re better than them. Why should they have control over us?”

He’d been the one to lead the uprising. At first, everyone had gone along. Some were wary of him, but they all trusted in him and his power to make those wild visions a possibility. But then he’d met Baekhyun, the estranged second son of Daedalus’ chairman, and everything had changed: his motivations, his desires, his conscience. Baekhyun had been raised a Daedalus kid, with all the callous entitlement that came with it, but he was different. Rebellious. Free-spirited. He had run away from home, built a life for himself in the theatre. He’d been cast out by his family. He’d… followed Chanyeol into the stream.

And now Daedalus had him. Chanyeol turned and ran for the doors.

The Abyss he emerged to was a completely different place. The glass cubes had lifted off the ground, hovering at different elevations, turning the dome into a three-dimensional labyrinth. Chambers were thick with pink smoke, the scent of which Chanyeol recognised. The flower of joy — opium smoke, spilling out of tubes and floating up towards the roof of the dome. Ravers swayed trancelike within their platforms, lay immobile within adrenochrome booths, needles inserted in their arms. Trance music pulsed through the venue, and in his peripheral vision he could see a current outside the dome pulsing in time.

A cursory scan gave him no information about whether anyone had caught up to him — he could barely see half the guests, what with everyone stacked above each other in building blocks. Police droids weren’t admitted as the Abyss was protected territory; doubtlessly they’d be waiting for him when he emerged. Chanyeol raced down the stairs and into the maze, climbing up and down flights of stairs that had folded out of the stacked cubes, squeezing through crowded corridors like halogen tubes.

This time, as he walked, people recognised him. He heard gasps as he passed, felt people cowering away.

“He’s... back?”

“Oh my fucking god.”

“Is it really–”

From somewhere behind, he heard Junmyeon’s voice, following him, asking people to excuse him as he passed through. Chanyeol quickly turned a few corners, trying to lose him, but he knew he was too easy to spot. The space was so cramped, he couldn’t seem to pull ahead.

As he pushed his way past through a crowd of people, something silver flashed in his vision and he caught a glimpse of an insignia he recognised, branded onto a forearm. It was the mark of one of Seoul’s biggest mercenary groups that weren’t affiliated with the deviants. The instant it clicked in his mind, a hand was holding his arm in a viselike grip, locking him in place, and he instinctively pushed sideways, using a bystander as a human barrier. Within a second, the person in between them was falling, muscles immobilised. Chanyeol grabbed hold of the man’s gun arm, and he managed to make eye contact, forcing him to stop resisting, before firing the tranquiliser into his own leg.

In those few seconds, Junmyeon had managed to catch up to him. Most of the crowd was scattering now, giving him a wide berth, as Chanyeol shoved the man off and ran for the exit. He made it to the edge of the dome and raced down the corridor to a waiting bathysphere, passing a group of new arrivals who stopped in their tracks to stare. As he burst through the doorway into the sphere, he saw Junmyeon halfway down the corridor, sprinting towards him. He grabbed hold of the wheel and spun, trying to force it closed.

It wouldn’t budge. Chanyeol was forced to let go and wait, but Junmyeon made it in time, missing the sliding panels by a hair. The airlock sealed shut, the tunnel above them lit up, and the sphere began its climb.

Winded, Chanyeol slumped against the bench. “Can’t you leave me alone, after everything you’ve done?”

Their ascent was silent, the only sound Junmyeon’s breaths, coming in pants. He was holding tightly onto the side of the sphere, facing the porthole — away from Chanyeol. “You’re not just fucking up your life if you do this. You’re going to end all of us. _Again._ ”

The sphere was leaving the pressure-controlled capsule. There was the sharp pressure hike as they emerged into water, and then the sphere flipped on its side, shooting off in a random direction. Chanyeol was thrown off the bench and he flew through the air, slamming into the rails running through the centre.

His entire front was screaming in pain, but he managed to grip them to stop getting flung around. “Do you really think I still give a fuck about politics? I’m going to get Baekhyun out and that’s it.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t need your permission. I trusted you once, didn’t I?”

“I’m fucking serious.” Junmyeon was somehow still standing upright. “If you do _anything_ rash, like burn half of Pyongyang to the ground, they’ll have us all killed.”

“You said it yourself — I’ll do I want, consequences be damned.”

“No. You fucking won’t.” Frustration was finally breaking through his voice. “You’re delusional if you think I’ll let you ruin this. After I did EVERYTHING to preserve the peace, the lives of our friends and yours and mine.”

Chanyeol laughed. “And your own power. You destroyed the revolution, didn’t you? Crushed it at its roots by stomping me out?”

“You can’t see beyond your own ego,” Junmyeon said, matter-of-fact. “That’s why any of this happened to you.”

Chanyeol launched himself at the other man, landing a solid punch across the jaw. Junmyeon struck back, and he was much stabler on his feet in the drifting sphere, but Chanyeol managed to roll out of the way, landing on the bench. Junmyeon didn’t continue coming after him, and Chanyeol knew exactly why. With difficulty, he got back to his feet and grabbed hold of the other man’s arms, trying to trap him in place against the wall. His head was turned, eyes shut. “Bring this sphere back to Busan!”

Junmyeon kicked out, and a coordinated lurch in the current had Chanyeol’s back hitting the floor, but he grabbed hold of Junmyeon’s ankles as he fell, sending them both crashing to the ground.

“They won’t touch him,” Junmyeon yelled, voice choked with pain. “They kept you alive, last time you were captured, for his sake. You can’t go turn yourself in.”

The bathysphere flipped and tumbled as they grappled. Chanyeol was holding onto the rails again, but they were both swinging wildly, feet dragging against the sides. “He betrayed them a last time when he came into the stream with me. There’s no reason they would do anything for him now.”

“He’s NOT in any real danger.”

“This is Daedalus we’re talking about.” Chanyeol could barely contain his anger, but he tried to even out his voice. “Look, I know _my_ safety’s at risk. But they have him hostage. And if there’s even the _slightest_ chance that they won’t let him go, I have to go. I have to do what I can.”

“You think Baekhyun would want you dead for his freedom? This is the boy who _followed you into the stream_. They literally kept you alive because they didn’t know what he would do if they killed you.”

“And so they won’t kill me this time.” Chanyeol turned back to face Junmyeon. “Not until I ask them to.”

Junmyeon’s shocked eyes flickered to his for the briefest of seconds, but it was enough. Chanyeol snatched the opportunity, channelling power into his words. “Bring us to Busan.”

A mask of trepidation slid onto Junmyeon’s face, but he was helpless. The sphere stabilised, rocked, and shot off in a different direction — up or down, left or right, Chanyeol couldn’t tell. He held Junmyeon fast, making sure the man could not move, holding them locked in a battle of wills.

The sphere broke the surface still hurtling upwards and crashed hard onto a rocky shore, several hundred metres below the pier. The force of their landing split the bathysphere neatly down its centre, and Chanyeol picked himself up with difficulty, climbing out of the broken shell. His legs were weak and he was definitely covered in bruises, but he was uninjured. Casting a backward glance, Junmyeon was still leaning against the wall, holding onto his knee in pain.

Chanyeol walked several metres along the shore, to a spot where he could be seen from the pier. He heard uneven, stumbling footsteps following him, and then a hand grabbed hold of his shoulder from behind. “Park Chanyeol.” His voice was pleading.

“Sorry, Junmyeon.” There was only one way forward. He took a deep breath and extended a hand, sending a column of flame rising towards the heavens, spiralling into a storm.

 

 

 

The captors arrived within minutes, a fleet of police droids emerging from a searching flyer. When they took him by the arms, locking them behind him, he could feel power surging through his veins, longing to escape. Resisting the impulse took all of his willpower, but he kept it under control, walking quietly with his face angled downwards. As the droids marched him into the aircraft and raised the doors, Chanyeol caught a last glimpse of Junmyeon, still standing on the rocks several feet away. He wondered if he would ever see the man again.

He was forced to sit against the wall, in between two droids, his arms held fast. Strangely enough, he wasn’t tranquilised, but allowed to remain fully conscious. Through a thin slit of window on the opposite wall, he could glimpse the district they were crossing — the destroyed part of the city — and this time, the sight took on a new significance.

He’d been completely surrounded by Daedalus’ forces when it had happened. He could remember sending streams of fire flowing down the roads, driving it up the sides of the towers, bringing entire blocks and fleets of aircrafts crashing down — along with the people inside them. _Collateral damage_ , he would’ve once justified to himself. He had no choice if he was to escape capture. But he also remembered the thrill it had given him, how it made him feel like a demigod, completely drunk off power. The memory made him sick.

Within the hour, the unmistakeable silhouette of the Daedalus head office became visible through the clouds. On a clear day, its structure — of an airborne pyramid, hovering several hundred storeys above the rest of the industrial complex — could be spotted from halfway across the country. Their aircraft accessed the dock from underneath, rising vertically into a hangar through an opening in the floor.

The droids kept their hold on him, marching him right up through a series of sliding steel gates and into a marble-floored entrance hall, where a long carpet led straight into the next corridor. Here they finally relinquished their grip, falling back to form a defensive line across the room behind them. The message was clear. Chanyeol walked forwards alone, towards the doorway at the end of the corridor, heart pounding in his chest. Beyond it lay a room so swamped in light that he could barely hold his eyes open as he approached.

Everything came into focus when he stepped through the doors and into the light. The room was long and as high-ceilinged as a cathedral, with large ornate windows lining the walls, letting in all that blinding sunlight. On both sides of the hall were giant ivory sculptures of men seated on gold thrones like the gods on Olympus — all the past chairpersons, Chanyeol realised with revulsion. But at the head, instead of a throne, a human figure was strapped into an electric chair, apparently asleep. The smallness and fragility of his form was stark against the twisted, suffocating grandeur of the room, its grotesque hubris.

The sick feeling in Chanyeol’s gut turned into a stabbing pain, and he blinked away the tears that clouded his eyes even as he walked forwards. He could see Baekhyun’s face — peaceful, his eyes shut, beams of sunlight alternating with shadow on his face. He could’ve been alive or dead or anywhere in between.

A wave of panic choked up his throat, freezing his chest. His breaths sped up, coming in short heaves. _Get him off that chair_ , the voice in his head was screaming. But as Chanyeol got closer, he could see the cage surrounding the throne, edges demarcated by tightly-spaced lasers running from floor to ceiling. The lines shimmered as he moved, silent and threatening.

With difficulty, he managed to speak. “Let him go.” His voice came out shaky and weak. Chanyeol looked around, but the room was empty. “Let him go,” he repeated, louder, with monumental effort. The words echoed around the hall, bouncing back to him.

He’d hoped for a response, but still got a shock when it came. “You for him,” a disembodied, unfamiliar voice boomed through the hall. “I hope you weren’t naive enough to come here, thinking to negotiate an unconditional release.”

Chanyeol shook his head. “No,” he said honestly, voice cracking. “I wasn’t.”

For what felt like an eternity, nothing happened. The lasers continued to shimmer with energy, inches in front of him, with Baekhyun’s motionless form lying behind it.

And then the lasers disappeared, abruptly as though they’d never been there. The instant he processed the change, he was sprinting for the chair, running up onto the platform. His field of vision twisted as he passed through the invisible edges of the cage, and suddenly he could no longer see the throne room — the invisible barriers were like mirrors, endlessly reflecting Baekhyun on his pedestal. Heart twisting, Chanyeol scooped Baekhyun’s still form into his arms. His body was cold and limp, his face pale, lips cracked, but his chest was rising and falling, and Chanyeol could feel his heart beating against his. The chair was silent, which meant he shouldn’t have been electrocuted. His state only highlighted how painfully, wholly human he was, and Chanyeol felt an intense surge of guilt and self-hatred.

Slowly, he walked to the edge of the cage and gently lowered Baekhyun onto the marble. It felt like any slight force would break him. Once more, tears were gathering in the corner of his eyes. 

Lasers hummed back to life, sliding out of the ground and ceiling, forcing Chanyeol to spring back before he was vaporised. He was back in the cage, and Baekhyun was gone from his vision. Behind him, the electric chair lit up with a spectral glow, beckoning him forward. Calling him to his rightful spot. Numbly, Chanyeol walked slowly over and took his seat. As his flesh contacted metal, the horribly familiar feeling of electricity took over, its currents running softly, threateningly over his skin.

But for all the vulnerability he felt in that moment, Chanyeol was not human, and he could withstand the current. It was nothing more than an annoyance, designed to mentally torture. He’d endured far worse in prison, higher voltages with a constant stream of intravenous sedation to keep him weak. As he sat, staring at endless iterations of his own reflection, he knew there was nothing actually trapping him here. He could break out in seconds if need be, bring their entire floating palace down in flames.

Except he was inside the cage now, and he couldn’t see where Baekhyun was. If he was still out there in the throne room, or somewhere in the complex, he’d kill his fragile human self along with the rest of them. Deep inside, Chanyeol felt that Daedalus would let Baekhyun go free — now that he was under capture, there was no reason to keep him prisoner. It was only uncertainty and time that was holding Chanyeol hostage. If he were to break out, even without taking down the entire complex, it would be a gamble that could end in Baekhyun’s death.

The minutes ticked by, stretching into hours. Chanyeol’s mind was reaching its breaking point, and the incessant current over his skin was no help, gently teasing him to give up control and break out. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there, and he wondered if they would feed him to keep him alive. Probably not. He would have to sit there and hold on until he had no choice, or knew he was ready.

Where could Baekhyun be? The moment his face filled Chanyeol’s mind, he felt a renewed surge of adrenaline pumping through his veins, and he had actively to suppress it, to contain his power.

Time continued to slow, each second sliding into infinity. He tried to keep time by focusing on his heartbeat, but the pounding kept building in a crescendo, and he could no longer tell what was fast or slow. The endless overlapping reflections of himself in the mirror distorted his vision, blurring his perception of space. Nothing felt real anymore. He was nothing but a mind, a wisp of consciousness floating in limbo, the soft tickle of current trapping him within his shell.

He didn’t even notice when the machines whirred, powering off the cage. There was an image of the throne room in his mind, but it looked faded, like a phantasmal apparition. Only when he registered the warmth of daylight hitting his face, did Chanyeol realise the vision was created by his eyes and not his mind. The shock raised the hair on his skin, and he stayed unmoving in the chair, waiting for the sight and sounds of the throne room to slowly solidify in his awareness. It couldn’t have been more than hours, but already the memory of racing down the hall felt an eternity past.

A faint figure appeared in the doorway, walking down the red carpet towards the throne. As overloaded as Chanyeol’s mind felt, there was no way he wouldn’t recognise that face — all of its subtly familiar features set against an expression he didn’t recognise, the light in his eyes cold and foreign. The man drew nearer, light from the windows passing straight through his form, and Chanyeol realised he was just a holograph. For all the power and resources the man commanded, he still refused to appear before Chanyeol in the flesh.

“Hello, Park Chanyeol,” The Chairman said, as though they were greeting each other at a routine business meeting. His voice was horribly similar to his son’s, but quieter and harder. “It’s been a while.”

Chanyeol stared back at him, lost for words. Why was the Chairman here? His eyes flickered around the room, which was otherwise empty. Baekhyun was no longer there. The lasers were down; the doors were wide open. Nothing would stop him from walking straight out.

Sudden realisation hit him like a train, and he understood. What all this had been about — Baekhyun’s capture, the suspiciously easy chase to Busan, the trading of hostages. Why they’d had him shown on all those billboards instead of quietly searching. Why only a small fleet of hunters were sent after him, when he’d single-handedly taken down larger fleets in the revolution days. Why bounty hunters were instead offered the job. The entire sequence of events had been orchestrated by the man that stood before him. It wasn’t about revolution or physical threat at all, not really.

It was a final standoff. It was about the both of them — Daedalus’ dominance, his defeat. It was about making a spectacle of him, showing the world how easily and completely he could be overcome. He had no doubt his capture and imprisonment had been broadcast on every screen across the region.

He could feel the emotions flashing across his face, and knew the Chairman was watching him catch on. “What would you do,” he said, testing the waters, “if I decided to bring this place down right now?”

The Chairman’s expression was thoughtful. “I don’t think you will. You have no backup and you care far too much about your safety now to do that.” He shook his head. “No. I brought you here only to drive home what you and I already know, but the public may not. Which is _nobody will ever come close to challenging the order_. Your effort was more concerted than most, but it was completely useless.”

Chanyeol could’ve laughed if he wasn’t so tired. “And having me exiled to the stream wasn’t good enough for you.”

“That wasn’t our action. Kim Junmyeon has some political sense. It made the resolution look more like a truce than what it actually was — our victory.”

“It wasn’t a victory, and neither is this. I came quietly. Junmyeon let you win.”

“You’re free to tell yourself that,” the man said. Their eyes were still locked in tense contact, but the holograph shimmered. “The point still stands. You think of yourself as strong and powerful, but one boy, and the world turns on its head. I don’t need to keep you in a cage. You’re held hostage anyway.”

“That boy is your son, and you used him as bait. Just to prove a point.”

“He left the family of his own accord and will be treated for what he is — a stranger.” The Chairman’s voice was too even. “Why would we waste resources capturing you, when we could make you come running?”

“You’re not afraid of wasting resources, you’re afraid you’ll fail.”

“Make of it what you will. We achieved our ends, the public knows where you stand, and I’ve delivered this message to you.”

Chanyeol wanted to speak, but the holograph interrupted, continuing over him. He could only listen, feeling disbelief stab deeper with every word.

“Enough. I’m letting you go today, because I know you won’t do anything. And know that if you do try anything again, you won’t have anyone backing you. They’ll all leave you, and _you’ll_ leave him behind again.”

The Chairman smiled balefully, knowing he’d won. He didn’t wait around for further discussion — Chanyeol was as easily dismissed as a minor inconvenience. As he turned, his holograph faded, leaving Chanyeol standing alone and completely unguarded, free to leave as he pleased.

 

 

 

◊ ◈ ◊

 

 

Outside the pyramid, grey rain poured down in sheets, drenching the industrial complex and flooding its streets. Chanyeol returned to the hangar and boarded the employees’ aerodyne taxi to Seoul, amidst cautious stares and contemptuous glares. He was a free man, though, and if any of them were dissatisfied with his presence, there was nothing they could do about it. It was a subdued journey, and there was an uncomfortable hollowness pressing against his insides. He sat down by the window, leaning against the wall. A sense of bleakness was blanking out his thoughts, mirroring the grey vision outside the window. Every inch of his body felt the fatigue like it had all set in at once, reaching so deep it probably would never subside. 

Belatedly, he realised what the feeling was — defeat.

It had been a long time coming. Thinking back on everything he’d seen, Chanyeol could get a sense of why he might’ve tried in the first place. He hadn’t realised then, but now he could put a reason or justification to all his crazy notions — because if they were so outcast from society, unable to play any sort of functioning role, how lonely would he have been? How unfulfilled, how aimless and purposeless would his existence have been? Others must have felt the same way, which is how he’d gotten their support at first — support for such a radical, drastic approach that could only have caused harm, regardless of the outcome.

It was all over now. Where would he go? His palatial home, on its own island off the south coast? But there would be nobody there to greet him, just empty halls, robotic staff and memories of Baekhyun — playing the grand piano in the entryway, filling his world with sweet music. Baekhyun taking a dip in his pool, skin glowing in the moonlight. Baekhyun standing on their private beach, holding his hand. Baekhyun watching him make dinner. Baekhyun under his sheets. The thought filled him with dread.

He had no idea how much time had elapsed between Baekhyun’s release and the Chairman’s entry, but he felt sure Baekhyun would have run as far as he possibly could from his personal hell. He would not be anywhere near the North. Seoul, as the nearest place he’d called home, would be the best possibility.

If Baekhyun was in the city, Chanyeol thought he knew where he’d be.

There was a place they’d once stumbled upon, years ago, and they’d made a promise then — if they were to ever be split apart or if they ran into trouble, this would be their rendezvous point. They couldn’t possibly have envisioned the circumstances they now faced, but the events of the past days probably qualified, Chanyeol thought.

He located the building as dusk was falling, and went up to the abandoned rooftop patio. It was a secluded spot on the outskirts, 320 floors high. Flyers passed at eye level as Chanyeol stepped into the open air, walking slowly through rows of overgrown, decaying shrubbery, past rusted iron benches.

At the far end there was a figure lying on the granite, hands resting on his torso, face angled towards the sky.

He craned around as Chanyeol approached, still lying down. “You look different,” were the first words out of Baekhyun’s mouth.

“Well it’s been a while.” Chanyeol lowered himself onto the floor next to him. “I thought I’d find you here.”

“You’re such a fucking idiot, Park Chanyeol. They wouldn’t have harmed me. You walked straight into my father’s trap? How many times has it been?”

“I knew he couldn’t have done anything to me.” He was only half-lying. “And I promised, remember? Be with you always.”

Baekhyun looked at him, his expression a mixture of relief and exasperation. He was the only one who ever looked at Chanyeol like that — like Chanyeol was a vulnerable child, in need of protection and care. Everyone else only reacted with fear or revulsion. Occasionally both.

“I had to get out before you started a fire but… he just let you go?”

Chanyeol nodded. “He spared me for you. He must have.”

There was a flicker of pain in Baekhyun’s eyes, vanishing as quickly as it came. “You’re gonna have to stop coming to my rescue someday.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.” He thought he saw Baekhyun smile, and it made him smile, too.

He lay down, and he was so weary, so tightly strung, all ability for conscious thought seemed to evaporate as soon as his back hit the ground. As he closed his eyes, breathing in the scents of dried flowers and earthy petrichor, time seemed to stop, enveloping them in a bubble of isolation and serenity.

Sunlight turned orange and grey as night fell. They lay down on the granite in quiet, retreating into their minds, watching the years go by. The last and only time Chanyeol had come to this garden, the sight of the city had excited him, fed his hunger and dreams of taking over. It had been early on in their relationship, when Chanyeol still worked on the streets and Baekhyun in theatre; they’d been dizzy, drunk off happiness, and they’d made out at this very spot, feeling invincible. But now, all he saw was the city that had cast him out, swallowed him up ever since he’d been an abandoned child living in the care of fellow mutants. What he once had was just an obstinate pride, against all odds, that came before the fall that was always meant to happen.

The thoughts were still turning in Chanyeol’s mind as they descended back into the city, staggering through overcrowded streets, picking up supplies from a twenty four-hour in the basement of one of the district’s bigger atriums. At night, they crashed at Baekhyun’s old flat, a small place in the middle elevations of Sinsa district.

By the time Chanyeol woke, limbs tangled in old sheets, midday sun was streaming in through the window. He blinked the sleep from his eyes and sat up to see Baekhyun, sitting on the old chair at the opposite end of the room, watching him. He was dressed in soft white clothes, his ethereal face haloed in light, and for a moment, Chanyeol didn’t believe he was real. He had to be dreaming still.

But before he could speak, Baekhyun stood, coming to sit on the bed by him. “Let’s not think about anything today,” he said. His voice was gentle, bringing back memories of warmth. “Let’s have one day of peace.”

It took Chanyeol’s bleary mind a few moments to understand. He nodded, pulling himself up to sit against the pillows. “No decisions,” he agreed. “We’ll go out today. It’s been too long since we went on a date.”

“Did our walk on the beach not count?”

The thought brought a smile to his lips, and a twinge of something almost wistful. “Even if it did count, it feels like a million years ago.”

Baekhyun laughed. “Maybe it was.”

 

 

◊ ◈ ◊

 

 

To a night-worker, Seoul in daylight was a jarring experience. Contrasting yesterday’s gloom, it was at a rare intersection of clear skies and clear air, and the light made everything deafeningly, blindingly amplified. Everything glittered — every tiny sight and sound, every highway streaking off further than he could see, every tower fading into light as it rose skyward. Light reflected off the people’s long vinyl coat, their shiny leather and heavy hats, bounced off storefront windows with their graphic-printed boxes laid out in neat grids. The night made the city less overwhelming, Chanyeol thought. It was easier to navigate, less harsh, and it was easier to slip through the cracks — to derive the easy comfort that came from going unnoticed.

Every street and corner held a different memory of his time doing mercenary work. He’d been reckless, death-seeking, unafraid to use and abuse his abilities, and it’d gotten him to the top. The bounty hunters were always heavily armed, but Chanyeol had only kept a single handgun with all his arrogance. He’d thrived in the fresh danger that every passing day brought with it. Now, walking through narrow alleys on ground level, he saw groups of people with weapons strapped to their sleeves, walking around with their marks on display — the same insignias he had branded into his skin. Some stared at him as he passed, their eyes questioning, asking what he was was doing there. Curious stares followed him everywhere he went, but most people just looked away, more inclined to mind their own businesses on a weekday morning. Still, they were a constant reminder of how he never had and never would fully belong to this place.

Having Baekhyun by his side made it easier. Chanyeol forced himself to stop scanning everyone they passed as was his habit, and focused on Baekhyun’s voice, his hand in his. They took a shuttle up to a sky garden, one of the few places where flowers still bloomed in the city. They walked to the riverfront “pier”, a floating embankment by the Han River, which could be seen while leaning over the railing, whooshing past some twenty storeys under. They passed the bandstand where Baekhyun had once sung, during his time as a fresh runaway. There was a new band playing, and even on a weekday afternoon, they drew a sizeable crowd. _Way more than they’d used to get,_ Baekhyun joked, hints of bitterness seeping through his voice which, try as he might, Chanyeol couldn’t hold back from teasing him about.

In the evening, Baekhyun chose a rooftop bar, nothing fancy, one of the low-key ones with robotic waiters and a live band. The sound of the lead singer’s honeyed croon layered over cold, brassy synthesisers was scorching and dreamy, the kind of music Chanyeol used to listen to in moments of solitude — on cross-country train journeys, in his Seoul apartment, way back in the dormitories of his adolescence. It was a sound he associated with comfort, and moments of peace.

The night sky was an ocean — dotted with crafts, steel infrastructure, puffs of light-scattering smoke shimmering like nebulae and drifting like deep-sea creatures. From some elevations above, they could hear the roar of a massive crowd where a metal rave of some sort was going on in a floating stadium, the air around it pulsing from the volume, a continuous spectacle of undulating lights peeking out from the top and spilling all the way down to their booth.

Across the table, Baekhyun’s smile was brilliant as the sun. The sight soothed his soul as it always had — even if Baekhyun was different from the boy Chanyeol knew from the stream, and he wasn’t the old flashy, callous rich kid he once knew either. He felt older, his energy more reserved. Somehow their time in the stream had changed them.

“I don’t remember the last time we went on a date like this,” Chanyeol said when the waiter had left them. Their cocktails glowed within tall glasses on the table between them, liquid vibrating with pulses of bass from the stadium above.

Baekhyun had to think. “It was probably at least three or four years ago? Before we moved to Busan.”

Just a year prior, they would’ve had a very different idea of a date. They would’ve gone around in private air taxis and luxury racers from Chanyeol’s island home, which Baekhyun jokingly described as second-class vehicles. Nothing compared to the kind of extravagance he’d once enjoyed as the Chairman’s son, but he hadn’t had any rides of his own since leaving home. They would’ve gone to all the most exclusive, pretentious clubs in the country, to the mountain races, or taken a boat out to sea somewhere far west. They would’ve gone on shopping sprees across the region, chasing some elusive satisfaction. They’d drowned and draped themselves in all those things for so long, being without them felt like fading into anonymity. Chanyeol was surprised to find he didn’t really mind.

“It’s strange, almost feels like the last couple of years never happened.”

Baekhyun nodded, idly fiddling with the spine of his glass. “Saturn just reversed everything for us. It was like reliving childhood.”

“More like living out a childhood we never had.”

“Yeah. Makes you feel almost lucky, doesn’t it?”

Chanyeol laughed, in spite of himself. “Actually, yeah. I doubt most people get a second shot at something like that.”

“And of all people, us.” Baekhyun raised his eyebrows, taking a drink.

“We’re really looking for silver linings now, aren’t we?”

“It’s one way to look at exile inflicted by people you thought were your closest allies.”

“But yeah, definitely not the most deserving people around.” Chanyeol kept his tone light. “Even I was taken aback remembering my own track record.”

Baekhyun laughed, not refuting the comment. “Do you regret it, though?” he asked. “The last couple of years, before Saturn?”

The question made him pause. He’d thought about it, many times that day, but he’d tried not to send himself railing down that particular train of thought. Deep down, he felt the answer had to be yes — there was too much harm he’d done — but at the same time, he wasn’t sure how a different path was possible. Could anything have made him somebody better?

Chanyeol shrugged and looked away, picking up his drink. “I don’t know.”

 

 

 

Predictably, Baekhyun was flushed and tipsy by the time they got through their second drinks, and Chanyeol guided him back through the district to the train stations, where they got on the city rail back to Baekhyun’s flat.

They left the balcony windows open, lying in bed with Chanyeol’s head against Baekhyun’s chest. Cool night air filled the room, along with a scattering of light, tracing outlines on everything in his vision.

“Do you still remember the first time we met?” Baekhyun’s voice drifted from above his head.

Chanyeol did. The moment was etched in his memory like it had happened yesterday. “I didn’t think you did. You were so wrapped up in the stage.”

“I do though. I saw you sitting there, with a girl. God you looked like a first class douchebag.” Chanyeol could feel Baekhyun’s laughter, and he couldn’t help but grin.

“I _was_ an absolute idiot.” There was no way to sugarcoat it. He’d never been serious about anything in his life, until the revolution.

“You’re lucky I thought you were hot, or I wouldn’t have let you even talk to me.”

“Sound judgment on your part.”

“But I wasn’t scared of you, even though you were a deviant. And then you came to the show, again and again.”

Chanyeol laughed embarrassedly. “I’ve no explanation for that. I was so obsessed, I’d never felt anything like it. It made me so fucking shameless.”

Baekhyun’s arms were reassuring against Chanyeol’s back. “No, it’s great you took the initiative. I’d never have known where to start going after you.”

“Well, it might’ve worked out for the better.” The thought made Chanyeol’s heart sink. “You’d still be here. Your face with the fake name would still be on the advertisement billboards across the atrium.”

“But I’d be alone. Struggling, and still depressed.”

“You’d have found someone else eventually, Baekhyun. You were a star in the making. You would’ve made it big, gotten new friends, a new family.”

Baekhyun didn’t respond, and with each passing second, guilt was gnawing away at Chanyeol’s mind. “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault that you had to go through… everything you did.” It wasn’t an option for Chanyeol — as a deviant, he’d never be allowed to integrate into society — but Baekhyun could’ve had such a better life, with so much less suffering.

Baekhyun sighed gently. “How many times have we been over this? We agreed, no self-hatred today.”

 _Easier said than done_ , Chanyeol thought. But he nodded and forcibly locked down that part of his mind, pulling himself up to lie against the pillows.

Baekhyun started to sing softly, a folk-sounding song Chanyeol didn’t recognise, though he thought he caught verses about forests and castles. The timbre of his voice sent a wave of comfort through Chanyeol’s body, taking him home.

They fell asleep like that, tangled in each other’s arms.

 

 

 

By the time they woke, it was late afternoon. Baekhyun’s back was visible in the kitchen as he moved around the counter, making a hot drink. Chanyeol watched him for a while, then walked out of the apartment and sat on the cramped balcony, looking out the dusk.

He inhaled deeply, breathing in cold, smoky air. Out in the open, he was surrounded by millions of people, thousands of sights and sounds and smells, connected to the very soul of the city. And yet strangely he still felt incredibly isolated, as though he was back alone on the shores of Saturn. For all the infinite opportunities and possibilities the city held, he would always be excluded. Always the outsider, never quite belonging. From his birth, he’d been cast out like part of the pollution, and he’d had no choice but to accept his fate as a “lowlife” in the public eye.

Did he need more than that? Maybe he could be content with a small life, here in this flat with Baekhyun. He could find something else to pursue on his own: maybe racing, which he’d always liked, or sailing. It didn’t even have to be here in Seoul — they could find somewhere far away and isolated, somewhere that would take his mind off the dark thoughts that constantly simmered in the background. Where they could find something less grandiose to occupy their days with…

He sensed a presence to his left. Baekhyun had stepped out to join him, mug in hand. “I never felt like a part of it,” Chanyeol said as Baekhyun leaned over the railing, looking down into the atrium.

Baekhyun gave him a sidelong glance, raising his eyebrows. “Even when you were working on the streets?”

“Yeah, even back then I thought I was totally above it all.”

“Once you’d gotten over the abandonment issues, you mean.”

“You’re one to talk about abandonment issues.” Chanyeol stole a glance at Baekhyun.

His expression was serious. “Between the both of us, I’d say you had the worse deal. At least I ran away of my own free will.”

“Even so.” Chanyeol didn’t quite understand what he was trying to get at. “Didn’t you ever feel isolated?”

Baekhyun hesitated, coming to sit next to him. “Well, yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I _wasn’t_ isolated. Maybe until I met you.” He brought his knees up to his chest. “Which is alright, because again it was by choice. You didn’t have a choice.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Was Baekhyun trying to reassure him somehow?

“Nothing, I’ve just been thinking.”

“I was wondering why I always thought this was such a bleak place, objectively.” Chanyeol was lost in thought. “Because it isn’t so bad, nor for most people, I think. They’re free, in most ways. Of course, they can’t challenge Daedalus — but it doesn’t seem like most people would have reason to.” Daedalus’ technology had undoubtedly done some good. They had robotised and automated almost all form of menial work.

“Because most people aren’t caged into one kind of life, like we were.” Baekhyun glanced at Chanyeol. “But that’s no reason to cut them slack, Chanyeol. You deserve the same as everyone else. If even a small group of people have to go through what you did, they’re not doing the right thing.”

“We did have some privileges. And I don’t know, maybe there’s good reason to keep us separated. Look at what I did.”

Baekhyun’s forehead creased. “Except not really, Chanyeol. They didn’t keep you guys apart to keep people safe. You were still out there on the streets, weren’t you? ”

“Yeah, but –”

“I’m not trying to bring up sore points, but you still racked up a sizeable body count,” Baekhyun said. “And yet Daedalus didn’t intervene until you were threatening _them_. Hell, they encourage you guys to stay in the business.”

Chanyeol had no response to that, and Baekhyun continued. “Daedalus only cares about turning profit. If they think keeping the deviants in crime will keep them uncompetitive, that’s what they’ll enforce. If they think revolution will threaten them, they’ll stop it. They have total control, but it’s only enforced for one reason.”

Of course, there were times when that level of control was exploited, Chanyeol thought. Verdicts could be reversed and one truth replaced with another, but it was present in every human-run civilisation. How many make believe apocalypses and revolutions had their world survived? Every single time, its core remained rotten. People had always been rotten, and systematic power only brought out the ugliest in them. The society he’d envisioned for the deviants wouldn’t have been any different — he had the self-awareness to know that much.

Yet there was enough good that it kept everyone holding on, century after century, living out their insignificant lives as the machine constantly morphed and mutated, showing different faces of its monster.

The next words out of his own mouth surprised himself. “When I think about what I’ve done, regaining my memory… it makes me feel like I deserve to be in that chair at Daedalus.”

What he’d done had been worse than anything he’d been trying to fight. Everything had been out of self-interest — he’d managed to justify it to himself, reasoning that the people didn’t have true freedom, but the truth was that his soul had always been corrupted by the power he knew he possessed. Every time he used his powers, he could feel the darkness rushing back through him, pushing his thoughts in dangerous directions.

“No.” Baekhyun was firm. His eyes were fixed on Chanyeol, his drink forgotten on the floor next to him. “Stop that. You deserve a chance to start again.”

“Do I really?” There would be no bringing back the people who’d lost their lives or suffered worse for his ‘mistakes’. “The only reason I’m still alive is that they physically couldn’t kill me the first time round.”

“You did some horrible things, but you can’t take all the blame for it. Circumstances pushed you in that direction, and you’re not the same person you were back then.” 

“Maybe not. Maybe that’s just who I am. Every moment I spend here, even now, I can feel all the dark thoughts coming back to me.” He remembered what he was like. He’d used his powers so much he sometimes did it unconsciously, clamping down on will like it was his right. He’d instinctually defaulted to it even after emerging from the stream, before he’d remembered Baekhyun and everything else. “Who knows how soon I’ll just wake up and decide I want to start all that again?”

Baekhyun shook his head, adamant. “That won’t happen. You’re different, more balanced now. We both are.”

“Why would we be different? All we did was lie unconscious in a box.” Surely their fundamental natures couldn’t be so easily changed by the events of a dream.

“I don’t think so. Saturn might not have been real, but our experience of it was real.”

“Okay,” Chanyeol concded, “maybe it was. Regardless, I can’t stay here for long. There’s nothing I can do here that wouldn’t just end up hurting the people around me.” He would not risk it.

“What are you going to do, then?”

“I could leave the country. The continent, preferably. It’s that or I turn myself and end this once and for all.” The words came tumbling out of their own accord.

Baekhyun’s featured contorted in disbelief, and he was momentarily speechless. “Turn yourself in?” He managed, finally. “Why did you even bother coming to save me?”

His distress sent a surge of panic through Chanyeol’s mind, filling him with instant regret. He reached out desperately, grasping Baekhyun’s shoulder. “No, fuck, that’s not what I meant. I’m not turning myself in. I just meant–”

“Didn’t we promise to stay together?” Baekhyun’s voice was angry, but Chanyeol could see tears in his eyes, threatening to spill over. “Do you think I’m going to be fine, if you go straight back to Pyongyang after getting us both out of there? What do you think I’m going to do here?”

“Then we can leave the country. Let’s go somewhere far away where we’d be anonymous.” Chanyeol held Baekhyun’s hands in his, speaking sincerely. “We could start over.”

The next words out of Baekhyun’s mouth shocked him. “It’s not the only alternative,” he said, blinking back his tears. “We can go back in the stream.”

Chanyeol’s jaw dropped, and he let go. “Are you joking?”

“No.” Baekhyun raised his head to look him in the eyes, jaw set. “It’s been on my mind from the moment I woke up in Pyongyang.”

Chanyeol felt his heart drop like a stone through his feet. The thought had fleetingly crossed his mind, but never in a million years would he have imagined that Baekhyun would seriously suggest it. “What exactly–” He struggled to find words. “Saturn doesn’t exist, Baek. It’s not some holiday town you can visit to relax on the beach or in your castle. It’s limbo. Complete exile.”

“So, not far off from what you’re suggesting yourself.” Baekhyun’s answer was ready. “Sure, it doesn’t exist physically. But our souls will be safe.”

There was so much wrong with the idea, Chanyeol didn’t even know where to start. “What happens when we come back out again, just like this time?”

“We only came out because we thought we stood a chance back here. We were forced in there. If we went in of our will, our subconscious wouldn’t be trying to get us out.”

He still seemed perfectly serious, not a trace of laughter on his face. Chanyeol shook his head, lost for words. He stood up and walked back into the house, hands shaking.

 

 

 

He could hear Baekhyun follow him in. “Think about it,” he was saying. “If we go back, it’ll be our form of victory, won’t it?”

“How on earth can that be a victory?” Chanyeol couldn’t contain his disbelief. “That’s the most extreme form of running away.”

“We’d be using their punishment for escape, and nobody would be able to touch us again.”

Chanyeol exhaled, leaning against the wall. “But don’t you think leaving the country is … I don’t know, the more logical option?”

Baekhyun stood across the room from him, resting against the kitchen counter. His brow was knotted, eyes downcast. “But what would happen after that? Join a hive somewhere else, start using your powers again?”

“There are other things we could do. You could get into music again. I could learn something new.” It was a hopeful thought, but Chanyeol knew what Baekhyun would say.

“We can do that in Saturn, and you won’t be ostracised for being a deviant.”

Chanyeol hated how he could feel his resolve slackening with every word. The idea of self-exile was tempting, but not for the reasons Baekhyun had. He was more allured by never having to face the things he had done; his feelings of guilt and fear that he would slip back into those ways.

Still, those were concerns for him only, and he couldn’t let Baekhyun enter for him a second time, even he loved him for the depraved, morally bankrupt killer he was. He voiced this thought, but Baekhyun shook his head. “No one wants me here anyway. I realised that when I came out.” His voice was tight, and it made Chanyeol’s heart ache. “This place holds nothing for me. We’ll have all we need.”

“We’ll lose our memories again.” The thought of going through the upheavals for the _third_ time made him feel sick.

“We’ll meet again. We found each other, even without our pasts.”

His hesitation must have been evident, because Baekhyun continued to push. “The deviants have their own stream, don’t they?”

Chanyeol nodded, only half aware of what he was saying. “That was always under Junmyeon’s sole jurisdiction, he wouldn’t let me have anything to do with it. He probably wanted to keep me in the dark in case he needed to use it against me.”

“We need to get in contact with him then.” Baekhyun walked over to the living room screen and pulled up a window.

Chanyeol realised what he was doing. “No. Hold on,” he blurted in a panic, crossing the room to stop him. “This isn’t a permanent solution. We’ll be frozen. Stagnant, for the rest of our lives.”

Baekhyun paused, but he didn’t turn around. “We won’t be stagnant. The fact that you’re saying any of this shows we _changed_ while we were in there. As for being a permanent solution…” his voice broke. “I don’t know, but there’s nowhere else we’ll be truly free.”

The pain in his voice was so deep, he had to be talking about his family. Chanyeol realised he had no idea what had happened to Baekhyun after he’d been freed from his chair back in Pyongyang, but he didn’t want to ask. He crossed the space between them in two strides and wrapped Baekhyun in his arms, holding him. They remained like that in silence.

At the back of his mind, Chanyeol knew he was jumping headlong into yet another drastic decision he might come to regret. But he was already sliding over the edge, and faced with Baekhyun’s desperation, he would’ve agreed to anything. “Okay,” he said, relinquishing. Any guilt tempering the decision was overwhelmed by the feeling of his burdens already melting away. “We’ll call him after sundown.”

They’d decided. They were heading back down the rabbit hole.

 

 

◊ ◈ ◊

 

 

Five months ago, Chanyeol would never have imagined he’d be doing this voluntarily.

They met Junmyeon at sundown the following day. He was waiting for them in an air limo, parked on the roof of Baekhyun’s building. His arms were folded across his chest as they walked up to the aircraft, climbing the ramp.

“Definitely wasn’t expecting to ever see _you_ again,” he said pointedly as they entered. “Hi, Baekhyun.”

Chanyeol grinned, almost reflexively. “Good to see you, Junmyeon. How’s the leg holding up?”

Junmyeon sighed. “Why am I helping you guys again?” He flicked a switch to slide the doors closed, and nodded at the driver.

“Because we’re paying?”

“So you can get rid of us forever.” Chanyeol took a seat across the cabin. “I’m sorry about before, by the way. It was life or death.”

“It really wasn’t,” Baekhyun said. Junmyeon glanced between them skeptically.

“I saw what happened to you, you know,” he said. “It was aired all over the region. Not the part where you went to take Baekhyun’s place, of course — just you in the cage.”

“And what did you think?” Chanyeol looked up at Junmyeon, raising his eyebrows. “How did I look?”

“Pathetic, of course. You were the best example they could’ve possibly picked out.” The limousine took off smoothly, and Junmyeon sat down opposite them.

“They’ll be ecstatic about what we’re doing, then.” Chanyeol glanced at Baekhyun. “Fading into obscurity of our own accord.”

Baekhyun shrugged. “We’re not going to revolt successfully anytime soon. I’d say fading into obscurity is the best we could do.”

Junmyeon shook his head. “You guys are completely mad. I’ve always said so.” Chanyeol remembered — folie a deux, he’d used to say. Neither of them were particularly stable, and they made each other worse. In the past, Chanyeol had always disagreed. He thought they kept each other tethered to sanity. But now he could kind of understand where Junmyeon was coming from.

The heart of the stream lay in a subterranean compound beneath the bed of the Han River, which housed all the deviants’ illegal pods. They accessed the complex through a deviant-owned riverside casino, and Junmyeon took them down in an elevator. The corridors of the dream centre were dark and clean, surprisingly well-maintained for such a covert establishment.

“The stream was developed for covert operations a while back. It got outlawed because of its potential for abuse,” Junmyeon said, as they followed him through the compound. “It’s one of the only things the police bothers enforcing. The wireheads still have their secret dens, though they won’t have access to this group jump. We developed this technology ourselves. It’s much less stable than a solo jump, with some risks like what you experienced in your last moments.”

They took a door on the left, stepping into a room off the corridor. Chanyeol was greeted by the familiar, spine-chilling sight of long human-sized pods, lying side by side, each lit from beneath by an energy vault. The space was dark but clinical, and set up like an operating theatre. Technicians were moving around the room, setting up sustenance and waste systems on silver trolleys.

Junmyeon rifled through a cabinet and handed them each a sterile set of clothing, directing them to separate changing rooms. Chanyeol pulled on the black separates, nervousness mounting in his gut. _I have to leave because I deserve it. I can let this world go. I’ll be a different person, without this awful past I’ve created._ But he could remember what Baekhyun had described to him the first time round — the loneliness, the unease, the sense of displacement he felt. It would happen again, and this time they didn’t know if it would end.

He stalled in his changing room, trying to calm himself down. By the time he walked back into the main lab, Baekhyun was sitting on the edge of his pod, technicians inserting needles into his arms.

Chanyeol sat down, and let them handle his arm, sliding on his wristplate and cannulating his veins. Junmyeon was in the corner of the room by the control panels, swiping across the screen.

“Baekhyun,” Chanyeol said quietly. “We’ll see each other again?”

Baekhyun nodded. “We’ll find each other, like every time. I trust you.”

“This might repeat, you know. We might remember, realise something’s wrong, and have to leave.”

“If it repeats, it’ll be because we wanted it to. We know that for sure.”

At the corner of the room, Junmyeon looked around. “Lie down in position.”

It was happening too fast. Chanyeol wanted to stand and hold Baekhyun, to kiss him one last time, but his arms and neck were full of lines, and he’d have to pull on them to make it across. Two of the technicians supported his shoulders, helping him align his body, and then he was made to lie flat in the mold, limbs straight and wristplate locked magnetically to its conductor. He was immobile. He couldn’t even look over to where Baekhyun was.

They were lowering the cover halfway, and panic seized hold of his mind. He tried to thrash out, but the technicians quickly held his arms in place, preventing him from standing and dislodging his lines. Chanyeol’s heart felt like it would stop. What if he never saw Baekhyun again? He hadn’t even taken a last proper look at his face.

“Promise — promise you’ll look for me,” Chanyeol yelled.

At first, there was no response. Maybe his coffin had already been shut.

Then — “I promise,” Baekhyun’s muffled voice said. “You feeling ready?”

What kind of question was that? “…I’ll never be.”

“We’re initiating the jump,” Junmyeon’s voice was audible from outside the pod. “Close the pods.”

 _Fuck._ The lid lowered over his face, and he was completely blind. The faint hum of electricity told him the pod was initialising. Anaesthetics would be already infusing through the lines, rapidly working their way into his system. Soon the probe would be in his brain, constructing their world from his subconscious.

Chanyeol closed his eyes one last time, and the world turned to white.


	3. Chapter 3

They were swimming together in the stream.

If Chanyeol was to be asked what entering the stream felt like, he wouldn’t be able to describe anything concrete. There was no visualisable form or sequence to what he was experiencing, just passive knowledge of his mind being dislodged from his body, then dismantled, knots untangled, seams undone.

As they floated, the past began to play out in Chanyeol’s mind, like cuts of a biopic shot entirely from his point of view. His energies were mostly dark, shades of grey interspersed with the blazing red of fire and anger, melted together in twisted confusion and circular reinforcement. The pictures raced while surrounding him, a unilateral journey down the wind tunnel. Opposite him, mirrorlike, memories whizzed through Baekhyun’s mind like fast-forwarded motion pictures, and as their consciousnesses fused, he could see everything Baekhyun had seen.

Their memories were superimposed, playing simultaneously as they tumbled through the stream. There was the unfamiliar image of Chanyeol himself, seen through Baekhyun’s eyes — and there was Baekhyun as Chanyeol saw him, standing side-by-side through all of their shared moments.

Chanyeol was at the rock opera. It was opening night. He was leaning back in one of the velvet-upholstered seats, getting ready for a night of entertainment. But the moment the man stepped out on stage he had his complete and undivided attention. He was beautiful and powerful in his stage clothes, filling the theatre with his voice. And then Chanyeol caught a glimpse of himself, in the front row next to his date for the night, looking horribly cliche in a suit and silk patterned V-neck. There had not been much to that moment for Baekhyun, just a flicker of awareness and a brief second of eye contact, but the moment had stayed in his mind even as he got changed and washed backstage, long after the curtains had fallen.

The scene faded, and a new one took its place. Baekhyun was sitting in his cramped dressing room after a show, staring at the reflection of black diamonds around his neck. He was back to get undressed and take off his make-up, but he wanted to keep it on for a moment longer. Over time, he’d gotten used to seeing himself painted over, and he felt oddly vulnerable without it.

Behind him, someone knocked on the door, and it swung open. Through the mirror, Baekhyun saw a tall figure in the doorway, holding onto a bouquet of roses. The sight brought a smirk to his lips.

“So you finally came to see me up close.”

Chanyeol stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him. He walked over and set the roses down on the table, turning to meet Baekhyun’s gaze. Through Baekhyun’s eyes, his smile was relaxed, eyes full of laughter, as though they’d already known each other for years. “Finally plucked up the courage.”

The memory distorted, lines twisting and rearranging as they skipped around in time. Sights rushed in and out of Chanyeol’s vision, and he caught words spoken in his and Baekhyun’s voices, in apartments, in flyer cabins, out in the city. There were snippets of other voices too — the other deviants, friends Baekhyun made in theatre, voices of enemies. All of these other presences were short-lived, sliding in and out of their story in turn.

The next moment, they were back in Baekhyun’s mind. He was sprinting through a crowded atrium and out through a network of crosswalks, desperately running from captors or mercenaries, Chanyeol couldn’t tell. Living alone without his father’s protection, Baekhyun was easy prey — constantly a target. There were too many people who wanted to get hold of him. Mercenaries looking for ransoms, Daedalus’ enemies, scorned ex-allies out for revenge, and in the early days, his father himself. He was used to running and hiding; he’d been doing it ever first leaving home left two years prior.

He’d managed to lose the people behind him. But Chanyeol, several blocks ahead, already knew he was running into an ambush. Baekhyun had no idea what was coming, even as he turned a corner and saw a man standing at the end of the bridge, tranquiliser slung over his shoulder. Chanyeol didn’t even materialise in his field of vision, but as flames curled around the corner, surrounding his pursuer in a ring of fire, Baekhyun knew he had to be somewhere near, watching over him.

There was a running theme through most of their memories, Chanyeol realised: they were always in the city, on streets and bridges and skyways, running for their lives — either chasing or being chased. In the early days, he’d been chasing bounty, chasing Baekhyun’s hunters. And then Chanyeol had risen up through the ranks, and their escapades got wilder and more lavish as time went on.

There were a few peaceful moments in between, of course. Welcoming the spring in a private sky garden they’d rented. The one trip they’d taken together in summer, out at sea to the rocky cliffs. A tranquil autumn hike in the woods. Warm winter nights in Chanyeol’s home off the south coast. Everything else seemed worth bearing just for those moments of ephemeral bliss.

Time sped up, memories continuing to flick by. Their peace was short-lived; they were in the midst of planning their uprising. The deviants went into hiding, and Chanyeol was moving around the region, contacting others for support. A team had taken down a major office in Busan, and the big guns had come rolling out of Daedalus’ hangars, flying in to take them down. Chanyeol stood in the centre of the streets, bringing fleets down, destroying half the city in the process.

Baekhyun was still in hiding, living between workers’ quarters of various deviant-owned casinos and nightclubs. He was back in Seoul, and outside the window, the giant screens were playing a familiar sight — a ticker of all the wanted deviants’ faces, Chanyeol’s prominent among them. The revolution was underway.

They were back with Chanyeol. He was running again, avoiding blasts, through the mountains in Chuncheon, bringing down crafts with hellfire. Debris rained down on the floating city, destroying entire districts. More collateral damage.

And then they were reunited for a stolen moment, facing each other again in a safe house somewhere outside Seoul. He could see Baekhyun’s pale body in moonlight across from him, hear his sweet voice in his ears, feel the caress of those hands — and jarringly, also see his own form moving above, sense his own touch on heated skin. Memories of those clandestine nights stayed in Chanyeol’s mind as he sat electrically chained to an iron bench, facing a wall, needles stuck in his arms, biding his time. Heat built in his gut, scorching through his restraints, and then the jail complex went up in flames.

Sequences of foam and dark water flashed through Chanyeol’s consciousness. He ran straight to the Abyss, only one thought in his mind: to find Junmyeon and get his protection. But the moment he stepped into the room a shot fired into his arm, knocking him unconscious. Only the deviants knew exactly what worked against his system. He’d been betrayed. Reliving the experience in his mind hurt as much as it had the first time.

They continued skipping forwards, occasionally slipping backwards through cracks. Was it seconds or minutes or hours they spent travelling down that tunnel, Chanyeol didn’t know. Every perception and feeling was compressed into nothing, stretched unto infinity. Most of their shared moments Chanyeol already knew from his years spent by Baekhyun’s side, but there were other memories, private ones he felt like an intruder to. Baekhyun’s mind was brighter than his was, more guarded but tainted less by fervor and injustice. His thoughts were lighter and more carefree, despite the hurt and loneliness that lingered in the backdrop. His emotional strength and optimism was stark against the dark anger that coloured all of Chanyeol’s thoughts and actions, standing out like a ray of sunlight piercing the night.

In one of their last moments of shared consciousness, Chanyeol could see the moment that the weight of their shared fates had borne most heavily on Baekhyun — the moment when he’d come to a realisation and made his decision. Chanyeol wasn’t physically there, but the burden he brought was still weighing on Baekhyun, casting a shadow on that opulent, suffocating room that Chanyeol remembered too clearly. Baekhyun stood before his father’s desk, facing the man who commanded every destiny in the region.

“You can’t actually be thinking of following that man into the jump.” The Chairman looked calm, but there was a falter in his voice that betrayed the first hint of worry. To Baekhyun’s eyes, it made him look like a stranger. “There’s nothing in this world that’s worth sacrificing yourself to that kind of nonexistence for.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Baekhyun said, and his conscience was clear, his mind was certain, his heart was resonating with the truth of the words he was speaking. “Because… he knows me.”

 _Because I know him, and he knows me,_ said Baekhyun’s voice. He is already a part of my soul. And nothing else I’ve experienced in my life has or will measure up to that. Chanyeol could sense the courage it took Baekhyun to come to this realisation — the realisation that after everything he’d done to escape, he was still vulnerable to something beyond his control. There was still something he cared about other than himself.

Next came Saturn, with its wild beauty, and its neverending monotony. On that night when they’d discovered the truth, they’d unrooted the foundations of the world they inhabited, lost psyches leaning on each other to reconstruct their awareness. The world couldn’t hold them. They’d stepped through the gates and walked straight into the most recent of their trials.

And now finally, they’d arrived at the end of the tunnel. The void beckoned with arms wide open, and Baekhyun entered it gladly, not once looking back. Chanyeol followed him, as he always had.

 

 

◊ ◈ ◊

 

 

 

Baekhyun’s days were endless cycles of violence, carnage and struggles to safeguard his power. On the surface, everything about his world was perfect. He was the prince. He had complete freedom, complete authority, hundreds of kids who trusted in and deferred to him. But beneath that all he could feel was a horrible emptiness and pervasive unease that would not be dismissed, no matter how hard he tried.

He knew something about him was different from the other kids. He wasn’t happy and content like they were. He could feel it deep inside, brewing frustration and loneliness that threatened to swallow him whole. Some days he thought he could no longer bear it. Sometimes when he sat out alone on the balconies overlooking the cliffs, he would look at the sea, the endless horizon and wonder if there was anything out there for him.

Then one day, it happened.

The children of the forest were standing in his throne room before the court, asking for a truce. Beasts in the forest, they claimed. Baekhyun had never heard anything more ridiculous. He agreed, if only for the sake of having _something_ change, but he was only half paying attention. He couldn’t seem to look away from the boy at the front of their assembly.

The boy was tall and blond, with cold, angry eyes. There was something familiar in his handsome face. The boy was looking back at him, and as Baekhyun watched him, all he could think was that the darkness was disconcerting to see in eyes so young.

The negotiations were over, and Baekhyun was supposed to dismiss the party immediately, but he hesitated. There was something he wanted to say to the boy, but he didn’t know what.

“You may go,” he said finally, heart sinking. The guards stepped up and made to escort the party back out.

The rest of the forest children turned to leave, but at the last moment, the boy turned back. He was looking straight at Baekhyun.

“I know who you are,” the boy said. His voice was shockingly familiar, deep and resonant. His expression was troubled, as though he had forgotten something important and was trying his utmost to recall.

Baekhyun held his gaze, mirroring his disquietude. Not a single person in the room spoke or moved — or maybe they did, but Baekhyun couldn’t see them. In that moment, everything else faded away.

Ordinarily, he would’ve retorted with a dismissive comment, but instead what sprung to his lips was an unsettlingly honest “who am I?”

The words came out haltingly, hesitantly. But as he spoke, the hardness in the boy’s eyes cleared like clouds scattering after a storm, and Baekhyun felt his heart lift.

“You’re the boy who sang.” The boy was struggling for words, but his face was lit up in wonder. “You’re… you’re Baekhyun.”

Each word was spinning Baekhyun’s world on its axis, rewriting its history. The moment he’d been searching for had finally arrived.

“And you’re Chanyeol. I know you.”


End file.
